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COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM: 



THEIR ORIGIN, HISTORY, GEOLOGY, 
AND CHEMISTRY, 



WITH A VIEW OF THEIR 



IMPORTANCE IN THEIR BEARING UPON NATIONAL 
INDUSTRY. 



BY 

HENRI ERNI, A. M., M. D., 

CHIEF CHEMIST TO THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE | 

FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF NATURAL SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT J 

AND LATELY PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY AND PHARMACY, SHELBY 

MEDICAL COLLEGE, NASHVILLE, TENN. 



PHILADELPHIA : 

HENRY CAREY BAIRD, 

INDUSTRIAL PUBLISHER, 

406 Walnut Street. 

1865, 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S65, by 

HENRY CAREY BAIRD, 

in the Gierke Office of the District Court of the United B 
in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



PHILADELPHIA : 
COLLINS, PRINTER, 






^* 



/. 2 



PREFACE. 



The main portions of the present 
treatise on coal oil and petroleum were 
written for and published by the Sunday 
Morning Chronicle of this city, several 
months ago. The number and length 
of these articles being beforehand limited, 
I was compelled, for the interest of the 
readers, to convey as much useful infor- 
mation as I could, sometimes at the 
expense of clearness and a more proper 
arrangement. 

Petroleum being a subject of most 
recent study, no books have as yet 
appeared which presented a full and 



IV PREFACE. 

comprehensive statement of even the 
most necessary and best established 
truths. The facts of this treatise had 
to be collected and sifted with a good 
deal of labor from many foreign and 
home journals to which the author had 
access. 

The articles anonymously contributed 
by me to the Chronicle having excited 
somewhat of interest, and having been 
favorably noticed, I yielded to the desires 
of disinterested friends, and now bring 
them again before the public in a more 
extended form. I do it, however, with 
timidity, for to rewrite and rearrange the 
entire bulk of material was incompatible 
with my regular duties and feeble health. 
All that I could do since the first writing, 
was to add and improve here and there, 
in attempting to bring the work up to 
the most recent date. 

On the manufacture of kerosene oils, 



PREFACE. V 

the following books may be consulted to 
advantage : — 

Dr. Thomas Antisell. Manufacture of Photogenic 

Oils from Coal, &c. 
Abraham Gesner. A Practical Treatise on Coal, 

Petroleum, and other Distilled Oils. New York. 
Dr. Theodore Oppler. Handbuch der Fabrikation 

Mineralischer Oele, &c. Berlin, 1862. 

The most valuable treatise on petro- 
leum, with which I am acquainted, is 
that of Tate, published in London, which 
I was unable to obtain, however, until a 
few days ago, when it was kindly for- 
warded to me by the publisher of this 
book. 

HENRI ERXI. 

Washington, D. C, April, 1865. 



CONTEXTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

Some Facts in Regard to Scientific Discoveries . 13 
CHARTER II. 

Dry ob Destructive Distillation of Organic Bodies. 

Products Obtained from Wood, Coal, or Turf . 24 
Ingredients of Beech-wood Tar .... 31 

CHAPTER III. 

Products of the Distillation of Cannel Coal and 
their Chemical Composition .... 

CHAPTER IV. 

Manufacture of Photogenic Oils and Other CJsbpuk 
Produ< ra from Coal, Wo< d, and Turf — Variation 

of the B the Tem. 
tloyed in Distii.li: ..... 44 
Distillation of Coal Tar 

CHAPTER V. 

Purification of Coal Oil or Kerosene, and of Bitu- 
minous Oils, together with a Brief History of 
these Oils; and Comparison of Artificial Pro- 
ducts with tb r> in Nature ... 60 

Brief History of Bituminous, and Kerosene or Ein- 
pyreumatio Oils ....... 

Comparison of Artificial Products with those found 
in Nature 66 

CHAPTER VI. 

Petroleum or Rock Oil — its Chemical Composition 
— Illuminating Power TO 



Till 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Refining of Petroleum ...... 

Illuminating Power of Petroleum .... 

CHAPTER VIII. 
History of Petroleum or Rock Oil .... 

CHAPTER IX. 
Boring of Oil Wells 

CHAPTER X. 

Origin of Petroleum 

General View of the Geological Distribution of Pe- 
troleum in the United States and Canada . 



PAOB 

84 

87 



89 

109 

124 
155 



CHAPTER XL 

Preparation of Aniline Directly from Coal Tar; 
and its Probable Origin — ARTIFICIAL Preparation 
of Aniline from Benzole; Transformation of the 

LATTER INTO ANILINE PROPERTIES OF ANILINE 

Chemical Test for Benzole — Coloring Prin< 
Derived from Aniline — their Mode of Prepara- 
tion and Application in Dyeing .... 

Artificial Preparation of Aniline .... 
Preparation of Aniline Colors 



160 

1G5 
170 



APPENDIX. 

Amount of Petroleum Exported from New York in 
1863 and 1864, and the countries and places to 
which it was Sent 

Average Prices of Petroleum in 1864 at New York 
and Philadelphia 



182 



18t5 



COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 



CHAPTER I. 

SOME FACTS IN REGARD TO SCIENTIFIC DISCO- 
VERIES. 

No man, even of the most ordinary preten- 
sions, dare any longer remain blind to the in- 
calculable influence which natural science, and 
more especially the branch of chemistry, 
exerts on all the mechanic arts ; nor to the 
great economical benefits which the practical 
application of its principles secures to all kinds 
of business. The hidden forces of nature are 
made daily more subservient to the commands 
of the human intellect; and with the con- 
stantly increasing acquisition of true know- 
ledge, mankind reaps more and more from 
2 



14 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

bounteous nature the riches of her stores in 
agriculture, mining, art, and manufacture; * 
securing wealth, comforts, and happiness never 
before enjoyed. 

Without earnestly contemplating the vast 
advantages in the possession of the race, we 
can scarcely comprehend how much this age 
of steam and electricity and science in general 
differs from all preceding ones. Alluding, for 
example, to the immense national importance 
of coal as a fuel, Professor Hitchcock says: — 

"It is ascertained that, by the same pro- 
cess of growth and decay, beds of coal have 
accumulated in the United States over an area 
of more than 200,000 square miles, and prob- 
ably many more remain to be discovered. 
Yet, upon a moderate calculation, those already 
known contain more than 1,100 cubic miles of 
coal, one mile of which, at the rate it is now 
used, would furnish the country with coal 
for one thousand years, so that a million of 
years will not exhaust our supply. What an 
incalculable increase of the use of steam, and 
a consequent increase of population and gene- 



SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES. 15 

ral prosperity, does such a treasure of fuel 
open before this country!"' 55 ' 

* " Professor H. D. Rogers, in his Geology of Penn- 
sylvania, shows that a vein of coal fonr feet thick, yield- 
ing one yard net of coal, will produce 5,000 tons of coal 
per acre, which coal possesses a power equal to the life- 
labor of more than 1,600 men. A square mile of such a 
vein contains 3,000,000 tons — equal to the life-labor of 
1,000,000 men. * In coal, this (the labor-power of a man 
for his life),' says an English reviewer of Professor Rogers's 
volumes, ' is represented by three tons ; so that a man 
may stand at his door while this quantity of coal is being 
delivered, and say to himself : There, in that wagon, lies 
the mineral representative of my whole working life's 
strength.' When we contemplate the further and indis- 
putable fact that one man can, unaided, and under dis- 
advantageous circumstances, mine in ten hours this 
quantity of coal, we need not be surprised that Peter 
Barlow, the distinguished engineer, after a full examina- 
tion of this subject in all its phases, should have said : — 

" ' It seems, indeed, a reasonable inference from all that 
has now been stated, that man was designed by his Maker 
for a higher principle of action — for the exercise of skill, 
and for invention ; to regulate the action of the lower 
animals to the purpose of labor ; to convert air, fire, and 
water to his service, and only where skill and direction 
are required, to become himself a mechanical agent.' " — 
Baird, Protection of Home Labor. 



16 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

From the long list of most important scien- 
tific discoveries and inventions, we will merely 
mention a few: as the electric telegraph, the 
art of photographing, electrotyping, the appli- 
cation of ether and chloroform to allay human 
suffering, the manufacture of gun-cotton and 
collodion ; of artificial mineral gems, increasing 
so that the hopes of chemists have even 
reached to the producing diamonds or crystal- 
lized carbon itself; Dr. Gall's improvements in 
the manufacture of wine; the artificial prepara- 
tion of mineral waters, sparkling wines, and of 
fruit essences, such as the pear, apple, &c, with 
which the English bon-bons in the market are 
flavored; the illumination of our houses with 
gas; the manufacture of ultramarine blue (once 
confined to the precious lapis lazuli) out of 
Glauber salt, clay, and charcoal. The manu- 
facture of friction matches out of phosphorus 
is also worthy of mention. The use of ordinary 
phosphorus being dangerous, on account of 
its poisonous property and easy inflammability, 
chemistry soon showed how to prepare it in a 
masked or allotropic form, at once perfectly 



SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES. 17 

harmless when swallowed in large doses, and 
safe to be carried, as it inflames only at 500 
degrees Fahrenheit. The fumes of ordinary 
phosphorus in lucifer match factories fre- 
quently gave rise to necrosis, a dangerous 
disease of the upper jaw bones. The new red 
form of phosphorus gives off no fumes. Still 
later, friction matches are made without any 
phosphorus at all. 

Metals of the utmost value, in a technical 
point of view, have been isolated from material 
among the most abundant on our earth's 
surface. Aluminum is employed by jewellers 
as a substitute for silver. Boron crystals have 
been successfully used in watches instead of 
jewels. Magnesium has the property, not 
only of burning like steel wire in oxygen, but 
in the open air, and with a light so intense 
that it can be seen twenty miles, at sea. It 
may be inflamed in a candle, and thus light up 
a room, a cavern, or an ancient pyramid with 
wonderful brilliancy. It has been ascertained 
that a wire of 0.297 millimetre in diameter (a 
millimetre being 0.393 of an inch) will give 
2* 



18 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

as much light as twenty-four good stearine 
candles offive to the pound. Magnesium wire 
is now manufactured on a large scale by 
Sonstadt, in Germany. Magnesium light being 
chemically active, it furnishes to the photo- 
grapher a substitute at night for sunlight, a 
good negative picture being obtained in fifty 
seconds. 

Some of the most recent discoveries prove 
in a romarkablo degree how far science can 
supply all reasonable demands of practical 
industry. Considering the enormous consump- 
tion of paper in meeting the wants of daily lite- 
rature and newspapers,- the steadily increasing 
use of tapestry, pasteboard, and papier-mache, 
packing, and the consequences of general waste, 
the question "How shall the future production 
keep pace with the demand?" was at one time 
becoming an alarming one. The paper manu- 
facturers met daily with greater difficulties 
in procuring raw material. In spite of every 
stimulus given to the profession of rag picking, 
the supply was necessarily a limited one. 
How, then, supply the place of linen rags? 



SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES. 19 

The scientific reasoning amounted simply to 
this: All kinds of paper are made up of woody 
fibre {cellulose)] the rags are but utilized vege- 
table fibres derived from flax, hemp, cotton, 
&c. Could similar material, although perhaps 
in a different form, be obtained, success was 
certain. In looking for such a substance, 
common straw suggested itself; this was 
worked, together with rags, into paper pulp, 
and the industrial riddle was solved, as far, at 
least, as the coarser kinds of paper used for 
packing, &c. were concerned. 

As early as 1772, Dr. Schaeffer, of Kegens- 
burg, published experiments on the manufac- 
ture of paper from different materials. Indeed, 
his directions were printed upon paper made 
from Indian corn-husks. This discovery was, 
however, unheeded, and the process of manipu- 
lation lost. In 1856, Moritz Diamant, a writing 
teacher, from Bohemia, again directed the at- 
tention of the Imperial Government of Austria 
to maize straw. The Government at once 
took up the matter, and had lately, at its own 
expense, a large paper mill established, which 



20 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

is now in successful operation. All kinds of 
writing, printing, drawing, tracing, and colored 
papers are made of almost matchless beauty. 
Indeed, it was ascertained by further experi- 
menting and perfecting, that corn-husks may, 
by means of proper machinery, be spun and 
woven into cloth suitable for bags, rough 
towels, oil-cloth, &c. 

A large number of beautiful specimens of 
paper and other fabrics were presented by the 
Imperial Government to the Commissioner of 
Agriculture, by whom they are now exhibited 
in his museum at Washington. 

Of all recent occurrences in the scientific 
world, the discovery and development of the 
properties of petroleum is perhaps the most 
worthy of notice. When viewed from a 
national standpoint, it fairly promises to out- 
rival the gold mines of California, in creating 
altogether new branches of industry. To the 
scientific skill and zeal of Reichenbach, we owe 
the discovery of the principal constituents now 
prepared chiefly from petroleum, but which he 
first obtained by the distillation of wood. 



SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES. 21 

These are mainly different oils, creasote, and 
paraffine, a wax-like body, now frequently 
exhibited in the shape of beautiful translucent 
candles. The same products were afterwards 
more abundantly and cheaply produced by the 
distillation of coal, bituminous slate, and even 
turf; and this rich field of usefulness soon 
became of immense importance over the whole 
continent of Europe as well as this country. 

A thin, volatile liquid, called naphtha or 
benzine, is obtained from coal oil, furnishing a 
substitute for turpentine. The proper under- 
standing of the process of combustion shortly 
led to the construction of suitable lamps for 
turning some of the oily products, which, in 
point of cheapness and illuminating power, 
soon became second to gas only. 

At the commencement of this century, the 
means of lighting the dwelling houses of the 
masses consisted of poor tallow candles, and 
dim and dirty oil lamps. What inconceivable 
benefit, then, must these modern appliances 
to the generation of light bestow upon the 
poor working classes, whose labor often begins 



22 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

before day and terminates long after night! 
Other oils were best adapted for lubricating 
purposes, and varied from the finest watch oil 
to lubricators for all kinds of machinery. An 
oily alkaline substance, called aniline, may be 
extracted from coal oil, which acted upon by 
chemicals produces a scries of rich and brilliant 
dyes. At this stage in discovery, native petro- 
leum was announced, flowing in some localities 
almost literally like rivers, and prepared 
directly in nature's own great distillery. Of 
course this unlooked-for circumstance rend' 
the manufacture of coal oil, no matter how 
cheap and abundant the material, at once un- 
profitable. The owners of factories turned 
their establishments into distilleries, where 
native petroleum was purified. In fact, this 
revelation has put an end to the whaling 
business, and there seems to be no limit to 
the practical usefulness and variety of products 
obtained therefrom. 

Let mankind rejoice when a great truth be- 
comes unfolded and bears its fruit; at the 
establishment of each step in the eternal sue- 



SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES. 23 

cession which leads from barbarism and misery 
to civilization and happiness. But, let us not 
forget the sleepless nights, the days of toil, the 
feverish anxiety, and too often the pinching 
want of some real discoverer and devotee of 
science, who, with the most noble aims and 
most unselfish purppse, has worn his life away 
in the consummation of this same object which 
has made the nations glad. 

If it can be truly said that the history of 
almost every great discovery has also been the 
history of suffering, let us heartily wish for 
that happy millennium to come, when the uni- 
versal sentiment shall be, fiat justilia, ruat 
ccelum. 



24 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 



CHAPTER II. 

DRY OR DESTRUCTIVE DISTILLATION OF ORGANIC 
BODIES. PRODUCTS OBTAINED FROM WOOD, 
COAL, OR TURF. 

In order to be able to appreciate the full im- 
portance of the at present all absorbing theme 
— petroleum — its origin, its manifold prod;, 
and their significance in relation to our com- 
merce, art, and manufactures — it will be neces- 
sary to follow its history somewhat in detail. 
A brief review of the artificial means hitherto 
employed in obtaining this invaluable article 
and its sub-products will prepare the way for a 
more perfect understanding of the principles 
which govern its accumulation in nature's 
great laboratory. 

Photogenic oils, and the numerous other 
products introduced gradually into practical 



DISTILLATION OF ORGANIC BODIES. 25 

life, and now assuming such general notoriety, 
were first prepared by a "dry" or "destructive" 
distillation of vegetable matter, such as wood, 
rosin, &c. We will endeavor briefly to eluci- 
date the principles involved in this chemical 
process. If a small chip of wood or straw is 
burned in atmospheric air — or, better still, in 
pure oxygen gas — its whole organic structure 
gradually disappears, and nothing remains but 
some traces of fixed incombustible mineral in- 
gredients called ashes. The elementary com- 
ponents of wood — i. e., carbon, hydrogen, and 
oxygen — have passed off in the form of gas or 
smoke, made up simply of water and carbonic 
acid. If animal tissues, into whose composi- 
tion nitrogen largely enters, are submitted to 
this process of combustion, carbonate of am- 
monia forms an additional part of the smoke. 
On the other hand, if vegetable remains — 
stems, roots, mosses, &c. — are heated in close 
vessels or retorts, whence the atmospheric air 
is completely shut off, the products formed are 
very different, more complex in their composi- 
3 



26 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

'tion, and much more numerous. Such an ope- 
ration is called a dry or destructive distillation. 
The simplest form of this process, and one 
which has been practised for the last two thou- 
sand years, is exhibited in the common char- 
coal kiln, which has for its sole object the fur- 
nishing of charcoal^ while the other volatile in- 
gredients, now-a-days considered as even more 
valuable, are suffered to pass into the air. If 
hard wood, such as beech, is subjected to dry 
distillation in a retort, and the volatile pro- 
ducts are condensed in a suitable vessel or 
receiver, four principal classes of bodies are 
obtained, viz : — 

1. Gases. 

2. Watery fluid. 

3. A dark resinous liquid. 

4. Charcoal. 

Product No. 1 is a mixture of inflammable 
gases ; the most important of which are : marsh 
gas = CH 2 or C 2 II 4 . defiant gas=C 2 H 2 or 
C 4 H 4 . Hydrogen, carbonic oxide=CO. Car- 
bonic acid=C0 2 , and sulphuretted hydrogen 
= SH. The latter is particularly apt to con- 



DISTILLATION OF ORGANIC BODIES. 27 

taminate coal gas. It is derived from the 
pyrites contained in the coal. 

As early as 1709, Lebon, a French engineer, 
conceived the idea of turning these carbo-hy- 
drogen gases to the practical use of illumina- 
tion, and actually lighted his house and garden 
at Paris in this manner. Murdoch, in England, 
afterwards substituted coal gas for the same 
purpose, and made a public exhibition in 1802 
by illuminating his residence. Pettenkofer has 
lately invented an improved apparatus for the 
manufacture of gas from wood, and has shown 
that it has many advantages. It is obtained 
more abundantly, and has a greater illuminat- 
ing power than coal gas. It is purer, having 
no sulphurous or ammaniacal odor. In Paris, 
they have begun to use native petroleum for this 
purpose, and several patents for the manufac- 
ture of gas from this oil have lately been taken 
out in this country. The process of making 
it is simple, it requiring no purification, and 
the apparatus is cheaper and lasts much longer 
than that for coal gas. It is not improbable 
that this now so abundant substance, being so 



28 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

cheap a source, not only of illumination but of 
caloric, may yet in part supersede coal itself. 
It is an interesting fact that, several years ago, 
the consumption of gas alone in London had 
reached the astounding sum of seven billions 
of cubic feet annually. To make this gas eight 
hundred thousand tons of coal are required, 
while the length of the main pipes through the 
streets of the city amounted to over two thou- 
sand miles. 

Product No. 2 constitutes an acrid liquid, 
known to chemists as pyroligneous acid, or 
wood vinegar; it is much used in the prepara- 
tion of acetates, such as acetate of iron, of lead, 
of soda, &c, which are in turn employed in 
dyeing and calico printing. Again, if pyro- 
ligneous acid is slowly redistilled, crude py- 
roxilic spirit, or wood-alcohol, passes over, a 
fluid having a disagreeable taste and smell, but 
which, owing to its cheapness, is largely con- 
sumed on the continent, especially in labora- 
tories, and often burnt in lamps instead of alco- 
hol. There is but little doubt that it would 
answer the conditions requisite for the preser- 



DISTILLATION OF ORGANIC BODIES. 29 

vation of anatomical specimens — a significant 
hint to manufacturers, when we consider the 
present enormous prices of alcohol, §5 per gal- 
lon, owing to which some of our large zoologi- 
cal museums (as that of Prof. Agassiz, in Cam- 
bridge) may yet become seriously embarrassed. 
Its solvent properties closely resemble those 
of alcohol, all substances soluble in the latter 
liquid being equally so in wood-alcohol. 

Owing to the high duty on spirits of wine 
in Great Britain, a mixture of alcohol and 
wood-spirit has long since been brought into 
use instead of alcohol. It is called methylated 
spirit, and is unfit for beverages or perfumes, 
but may be employed in the manufacture of 
fulminate of mercury (for percussion caps), of 
chloroform, ether, &c. 

Product No. 3 is a wood-tar, a thick liquid, 
insoluble in water, but soluble in alcohol; it 
was formerly used principally as a wood-pre- 
server for tarring and calking ships, but later 
it proved to be an important source of both 
photogenic and lubricating oils — subjects to 
be more fully spoken of hereafter. 
3* 



30 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

Product No. 4 is the charcoal remaining in 
the retort; it is used as an article of fuel, or 
as a reducing agent in metallurgy. 

We have reason to believe that some at least 
of these secondary products of dry distillation 
were known to the ancient Egyptians; who are 
said to have employed crude pyroligneous acid, 
containing creasote, as a flesh preserver in em- 
balming their dead; according to others, they 
used native bitumen, or our present petroleum. 
From a limited experience in embalming, we 
believe crude light petroleum, or purified 
commercial oils — in that case charged with 
some creasote — to be well adapted for preser- 
vation, being injected into the veins in the 
usual manner. Be this as it may, it is only of 
late that the finer and more subtle qualities of 
tar, whether native or obtained by the distilla- 
tion of wood, bituminous coal, or turf, have 
been brought to light. This hitherto ill-reputed, 
filthy compound has been §hown to contain 
quite a number of bodies most useful in the 
arts and manufactures. For this reason it has 
not only attracted the eyes of the scientific 



DISTILLATION OF ORGANIC BODIES. 31 

world, but promises to become hereafter an 
almost boundless source of domestic comfort 
and happiness. 



Ingredients of Beech-wood Tar. 

Keichenbach, an Austrian chemist, while 
operating upon beech-wood tar in the years 
1830-35, discovered and isolated the following 
ingredients: — 

Light Oil, or Eupioyie, from svs, good, and *uoi>, 
fat, is an inodorous, insipid, limpid, colorless 
liquid of the specific gravity 0.655 ; it burns 
with a brilliant flame, and is miscible with 
other oils and ether. It boils at 116° F. Its 
composition is C 5 H 6 . Frankland considers 
eupione to consist principally of hydride of 
amyle. The less volatile portions of the 
lighter oil contain wood-spirit, acetone, and the 
hydrocarbons, benzole, toluole, and xylole; 
these latter may be removed by agitation with 
sulphuric acid with which they form colligated 
acids. Eeichenbach gave it the name quoted, 
under the impression that it was a distinct 



32 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

organic substance, and not a mixture of many 
different liquids, boiling at different tempera- 
tures, as has since been shown. Its composi- 
tion will be noticed when we consider it as one 
of the coal oils. 

Heavy Oil. — This is collected after the eu- 
pione has almost ceased to distil over. It is a 
fatty mixture, containing some of the sub- 
stances belonging to the light oil, and several 
oils heavier than water, namely: — 

Picamar, from pix and amarus, is a viscid, 
colorless, oily liquid of an intensely bitter taste. 
To this principle tar owes its bitterness. 

Kajmomore, from xajtvbs, smoke, and ftoipo, part. 
— This forms a colorless oil, having a taste 
like ginger, and producing a sense of suffoca- 
tion. Besides these components, the heavy 
tar-oils contain creasote and paraffine, about to 
be described, and some other compounds ex- 
tracted at a higher temperature by Laurent, 
such as chrysene =C 12 II 4 and pyrene ssC^H^ 

Creosote.-*- C^H^O^ HO,C 16 H 9 (?) Its pre- 
paration is tedious. The heavier portions of 
the oil obtained from wood-tar after being 



DISTILLATION OF ORGANIC BODIES. 33 

washed with a solution of carbonate of soda, 
are submitted to distillation, by which they 
are further separated into a portion lighter 
than water, and into another which sinks in 
this liquid. This heavier oil is then treated 
with a solution of potash of specific gravity 
1.12. By this means the creasote is dissolved 
and the greater part of the hydrocarbons which 
accompanied it are separated. The alkaline 
' solution, after being decanted from the hydro- 
carbons, is boiled gently in an open basin, with 
a view to oxidize a portion of the impurities. 
When cold, dilute sulphuric acid in slight 
excess is added to the liquid, by which means 
the creasote is set at liberty. To purify it, it 
has to be redistilled with water, again treated 
with concentrated solution of potash, then with 
dilute sulphuric acid, and then redistilled with 
water. Finally, the creasote must be digested 
upon chloride of calcium and distilled by itself. 
It will then have the boiling point 398° F., and 
does not become brown by keeping. When 
pure it is an oily, colorless, neutral fluid, ex- 
hibiting a strong, peculiar smoky odor, and 



34 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

sharp, burning taste. Its specific gravity is 
1.057 ; its boiling point 398° F. It is inflam- 
mable, soluble in acetic acid, alcohol, ether, and 
benzole, and coagulates albumen instantly. 

It forms a large part of the heavy oil of tar 
passing over toward the end of distillation; the 
nauseous smell of tar or of native petroleum, 
is mainly due to this substance. Crcasote is 
but slightly soluble in water; it has most 
powerful antiseptic properties. Thus, a piece 
of flesh steeped in a.very dilute solution of it, 
dries up into a mummy-like substance, which 
thence refuses to putrefy. Tongues and hams 
may be almost instantly cured by immersing 
them in a mixture of one part of creasote, and 
one hundred parts of water or brine. Dentists 
employ it for the purpose of relieving tooth- 
ache arising from decaying teeth. In a very 
diluted form it is a most valuable application 
in cases of fetid ulcers, hospital gangrene, and 
many cutaneous affections, as itch, &c. In the 
smallest quantities it prevents or stops the 
fermentation of wine, cider, beer, &c. It is 
this substance which imparts to wood smoke, 



DISTILLATION OF OEGANIC BODIES. 35 

produced by incomplete combustion, its quali- 
ties of preserving meat. The eyes of many a 
poor wretch of boarding-house experience 
testify to its pungent properties, as he sheds 
compulsory tears over a bad fire. The crea- 
sote at present most found in commerce is 
either prepared direct from coal, or from petro- 
leum during the process of purification, and 
has a dark color generally. Wood and coal 
creasote, though distinct bodies, exhibit, in 
some respects, identical properties ; both are of 
course dangerous poisons. Wood creasote is 
probably a homologue of coal creasote. 

Coal tar creasote, syn. with phenic or car- 
bolic acid, hydrated oxide of phenyl, and phe- 
nol, =C 12 H 6 2 =HO,C 12 H 5 0. Specific gravity 
= 1.065 ; boils at 369° F. It forms also a pro- 
duct of the distillation of gum benzoine, of the 
resin of the Xanthorrhoea hastilis. Staedeler 
found it in the urine of the cow. Its solutions 
do not redden litmus paper. A drop of it let 
fall upon paper produces a transient greasy 
stain. If a splinter of deal be dipped into a 
solution of phenic acid and then into nitric or 



36 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

hydrochloric, the wood as it dries becomes blue. 
Phenic acid, when heated with ammonia in a 
sealed tube, is partly converted into water and 
aniline ; with caustic potash it forms a crystal- 
line compound. It is now more particularly 
employed as a valuable permanent dye-stuff 
for silk and woollen fabrics. Carbolic acid, 
when treated with nitric acid at a moderate 
heat, yields carbozotic or picric acid of a yellow 
color; by concentrating this liquor by evapo- 
ration, we obtain yellow, scaly crystals. Picric 
acid is intensely bitter, like quinine, and may 
prove a good remedy for intermittent fever. 
Ale and beer have been repeatedly found to 
be adulterated with it. Like all the tar colors, 
its dyeing qualities when in solution are most 
intense, z. e., a very small weight of the mate- 
rial goes very far. Silk and woollen goods, 
without further preparation, when brought 
into the solution even cold, assume a magnifi- 
cent yellow color, throwing far into the shade 
those obtained from other dyes. Cotton fibre 
affords less attraction for the dye. Picric or 
trinitro-phenic acid, as it is often called, may, 



DISTILLATION OF ORGANIC BODIES. 37 

however, be obtained from a great variety of 
substances, when acted upon by hot nitric acid, 
such as indigo, aniline, saligenine, salicylous and 
salicylic acids, salicine, phloridzine, silk, aloes, 
coumarine, and many gum-resins, etc. Picric 
acid has the composition (HO,C 12 H 2 (N0 4 ) 3 0). 
It may be fused to a yellowish oil, and even 
be partially sublimed, but if suddenly heated 
it explodes. 

Paraffine or tar-ivax is another useful and 
interesting body. It comes over toward the 
last stages, when crude tar is rectified. It is 
particularly abundant in beech tar, but occurs 
in the tar of both animal and vegetable sub- 
stances, and in all kinds of American petro- 
leum. Its specific gravity is 0.870, and it fuses 
at 110.7° F. It is a pearly white, tasteless, and 
inodorous solid, miscible when melted, in all 
proportions, with fixed and volatile oils; the 
strongest and most corroding acids and alkalies 
have no effect upon it, whence its name, from 
parum, affinis. 

It burns with a bright, white flame, without 
smoke. It is now much employed as a mate- 
4 



S3 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

rial for candles, which for matchless purity and 
lustre are without a rival, the best and most 
costly of wax tapers not excepted. Paraffine 
possesses many properties which render it use- 
ful in the laboratory. It may be advantageously 
substituted for oil in baths, as it endures a high 
temperature without evaporating or emitting 
any unpleasant odor. Bibulous paper, after 
being soaked in it, may be kept several weeks 
in concentrated sulphuric acid without under- 
going the slightest alteration. Hence paraffine 
forms an excellent coating to labels; hydro- 
fluoric acid, even, does not act upon it except 
it be heated. It appears also to be useful in 
preserving fruits. Apples, pears, &c, coated 
with it retain all their freshness during many 
months. Perhaps it will be proved that flowers 
might thus be likewise preserved. 

Paraffine is now most abundantly obtained 
by distillation from cannel coal, or native petro- 
leum, when it comes over with certain isomeric 
oils, passing into the receiver toward the close 
of distillation. In other words, the oily mix- 
ture which remains after most of the photogenic 



DISTILLATION OF ORGANIC BODIES. 39 

oils have passed over, and from which the solid 
paraffine may be obtained, is called paraffine 
oil. For experimental purposes on a small 
scale, paraffine may be most readily prepared 
by distilling beeswax with lime. 

Asphalt, or pitch, is the fixed residue left 
after distilling tar; like the native asphalt, it 
is used for varnishes and as an ingredient for 
making lampblack, which latter is again em- 
ployed in preparing printers' and lithographers' 
inks. 

Eeichenbach, however, did not yet procure 
any of these substances in quantities sufficient 
to turn his important discoveries to practical 
advantage. Mansfield and Young, of practical 
England, took out patents, in 18-18, for pre- 
paring, out of coal tar, obtained as a bi-product 
in gas establishments, paraffine and certain oils 
suitable for photogenic and lubricating pur- 
poses. 



40 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 



CHAPTER III. 

PRODUCTS OF THE DISTILLATION OF CANNEL 
COAL AND THEIR CHEMICAL COMPOSITION. 

The products obtainable from coal are still 
more numerous than those from wood; many 
of them differ essentially, as would be naturally 
inferred from the different nature and compo- 
sition of the material from which they are 
derived. Wood being rich in oxygen, and 
poor in nitrogen, furnishes products containing 
much acetic acid and little ammonia, exhibiting 
hence an acid reaction. Coal and animal mat- 
ters, containing, on the contrary, much nitrogen 
and but little oxygen, yield a good deal of 
ammonia, imparting to the products an alkaline 
reaction. Coal tar has of late been shown to 
contain — 

1. Acid oils, soluble in alkalies, such as pot- 
ash, &c. 



DISTILLATION OF CAKNKL COAL. 41 

2. Alkaline oils, soluble in acids, such as 
sulphuric. 

3. Neutral oils not affected by alkalies and 
some acids. 

No. 1 consists essentially of carbolic acid or 
coal creasote = C 12 H 6 2 , together with small 
quantities of the following acids, viz : rosolic, 
brunolic, acetic, butyric. 

No. 2 constitutes but a small bulk of the 
mass, and consists chiefly of ammonia = NH 3 , 
aniline, syn. with phenylamine=NC 12 H 7 , and 
leucoline, syn. with quinoline*-N,C 18 ,H 7 . 

Both of the latter furnish a base for the most 
beautiful dyes, representing all the colors of the 
solar spectrum or rainbow, if the yellow shade, 
obtained from coal creasote, as previously de- 
scribed, is included. 

Besides, traces of the following substances 
have been detected, viz: — 

Ethylamine, Lutidine, 

Methylamine, Cumidine, 

Picoline, Pyrrole. 

• Toluidine. 

No. 3, comprising coal oils proper, is com- 
4* 



42 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

posed of a great variety of hydrocarbons, both 
liquid and solid, the latter being held in solu- 
tion. All are of different volatilities, viz., boil 
at different temperatures. 

A. Alcohol series of hydrocarbons — 
Hydride of Arayle=C 10 II 12 , boils at 102° F. 
Hydride of Caproyle=C 12 H 14 , boils at 154° F. 
Hydride of (Enanthyle=C 14 II lfll boils at 208° F. 
Hydride of Capryle=C 16 II u , boils at 246° F. 

B. Benzole series of hydrocarbons — 
Benzole=C 12 n 6 , boils at 177° F. 
Toluole = C 14 II s , boils at 280° F. 
Xylole=C 16 H 10 , boils at 263° F. 
Curaole=C 18 H 12 , boils at 299° F. 
Cymole=C 20 H 14 , boils at 341° F. 

C. Paraffine series of solid hydrocarbons. 
Paraffinc= (empirically) C u H n . Its rational 

formula is not known, but it appears to be a 
homologue of olefiant gas=C 4 H 4 . Its specific 
gravity is 0.870. It fuses at 110.7° F. Its 
boiling point is upwards of 418° (?). 

NaphthaIine=C 2Q H. 8 . Specific gravity 1.153 ; 
fusing point 174° ; boiling point 428°. Beau- 
tiful red and blue colors, rivalling those from 



DISTILLATION OF CANNEL COAL. 43 

aniline, have lately been obtained from this 
pearly-white solid. 

Paranaphthaline, syn. with anthracene, = 
C 30 H 12 , t. e., it forms, according to Dumas and 
Laurent, a polymere of naphthaline. Ander- 
son's analysis leads to the formula C 28 H 10 . 
Fusing point 416°; boiling point 570°. It 
forms a white crystalline solid. 

Pyrene^C^r 

Chrysene= C 12 H 14 . 

These two solids were obtained by Laurent 
in the latter stages of the distillation of fatty 
and of resinous bodies, and in that of coal tar. 



44 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 



CHAPTER IV. 

MANUFACTURE OF PHOTOGENIC OILS AND OTHER 
USEFUL PRODUCTS FROM COAL, WOOD ; AND 
TURF — VARIATION OF THE RESULT ACCORD- 
ING TO THE TEMPERATURE EMPLOYED IN DIS- 
TILLING. 

Naphthaline and paranaphthaline are 
formed when organic substances are decom- 
posed at a high temperature, as in gas works, 
where they frequently incrust the pipes lead- 
ing from the retorts. 

Paraffine accompanies the heavier coal oils 
produced at a more moderate temperature; 
from this fact it will be perceived at once that 
the manufacture of illuminating gas and of 
paraffine oils can never be advantageously con- 
ducted at one and the same time. 



DISTILLATION OF COAL TAR. 45 



Distillation of Coal Tar. 

In distilling coal tar over a free fire, or by 
passing steam through the retorts, one of the 
first products which goes into the receiver 
is a light, very mobile fluid, known as crude 
naphtha. "Washing, first with dilute sulphuric 
acid, to remove the basic oils, and next with 
potassa liquor, to remove any acid oils present, 
and repeated distillation of the purified mix- 
ture, furnishes the so-called rectified naphtha, 
of which benzole or benzine forms one of the 
most abundant and useful substances. 

Benzole was originally obtained by Faraday 
from the liquid produced by the compression 
of oil gas, and named bicarburet of hydrogen. 
Benzole may be easily procured in small 
quantities by distilling one part of benzoic 
acid with three parts of quicklime; the dis- 
tillate should be agitated with a weak solution 
of potash, and the benzole which rises to the 
surface be dried by digestion upon chloride of 
calcium; after which it may be obtained pure 



/ 



46 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

by redistillation. Benzoic acid yields about a 
third of its weight of benzole. 

From coal naphtha — the cheapest and most 
abundant source of benzole— it may be pro- 
cured pure by repeated rectifications, and 
exposing the product to a cold of 32° F., when 
it solidifies in transparent crystals or camphor- 
like masses. The other hydrocarbons asso- 
ciated with it remain liquid at that tempera- 
ture. Two gallons of naphtha furnish thus a 
pint of pure benzole. Even the commercial, 
impure, and diluted benzole or coal naphtha 
constitutes a superior menstruum for oils, 
resins, and fats, which renders it suitable for 
family use in removing stains from silksi 
woollen and cotton fabrics, carpets, &c.* A 
solution of one part of wax and one of rosin, 
in two parts of naphtha, forms an excellent 
furniture polish. 

Naphtha, containing no oxygen, may be 

* A fluid now usually sold in drugshops for this pur- 
pose, and labelled benzine, we find to consist merely of 
the more volatile constituents of petroleum ; it answers 
in a measure the purpose for which it is designed. 



DISTILLATION OF COAL TAR. 47 

advantageously employed for preserving potas- 
sium, sodium, manganese, and other oxidizable 
metals. Care should be taken, however, first 
to ascertain whether it is truly anhydrous, i. e n 
deprived of water, otherwise serious explosions 
might occur. 

By its own evaporation it keeps off insects 
from zoological collections or stuffed animals. 
Mansfield introduced benzine into the English 
market more especially as a solvent of caout- 
chouc and gutta percha. The solution is used 
in rendering cloth and other fabrics water- 
proof; also in the manufacture of syringes, 
surgical instruments, &c. 

It replaces oil of turpentine, ether, &c, in 
preparation of varnishes and paints. 

Being very volatile and highly inflammable, 
it is even more dangerous than turpentine. 
Hence explosions of lamps and conflagrations 
in storehouses have been frequent. The law 
ought to prohibit its storage in the very hearts 
of our cities, and should regulate its shipping 
by railroads and vessels, in order to protect 
human life. Since many of the component 



48 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

parts of coal oil assume the form of vapor at 
any temperature above zero, it is evident that we 
cannot too carefully guard against those acci- 
dents so common to explosive compounds. 
Its volatile nature renders it as dangerous as 
alcohol. Shall the late terrible catastrophe at 
Philadelphia pass by unheeded, or will the 
public, taught by sad experience, at length 
show their appreciation of these Gael 

Naphtha and petroleum expose! to the atmo- 
sphere gradually thicken or solidify, for, like 
many of the essential drying oils, they take up 
oxygen and form resins or gums. Painters 
and artists mix their colors with drying oils, 
such as turpentine, poppy, nut, and flax 
oils. 

Benzole, when treated with concentrated 
nitric acid, forms nitrobenzole or artificial oil 
of bitter almonds, used in the art of perfumery. 

The following formula will render this pro- 
cess clear: — 

C 12 H 6 +N0 5 = C 12 II 5 N0 4 +HO. 



Benzole + Nitric Acid. = Nitrobenzole + Water. 



DISTILLATION OF COAL TAR. 49 

By means of nitric acid all the members of 
the benzole series may be separated from the 
amyle series of hydrocarbons. 

Nitrobenzole or "Essence de Mirbane," as it 
has been styled, is largely used for scenting 
fancy soaps, for which purpose, being less 
affected by alkalies, it is more suitable than the 
genuine oil. For confectionery shops it is 
still more preferable, since it never contains, 
like the other, traces of prussic acid — a fearful 
poison. 

Nitrobenzole may be readily transformed into 
aniline, to which, in connection with the justly 
celebrated tar colors, we shall direct the atten- 
tion of the reader in a separate chapter. 

As the distillation goes on and the tempera- 
ture rises, the heavier and less volatile oils 
come over, which may, as such, be disposed of 
to machine shops, or, by redistillation, be 
changed into light oil and paraffine. 

At last the dark-colored paraffine oils appear, 
which are so much charged with paraffine that, 
by exposure in open vats, they deposit this 
body in white scales. 
5 



50 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

In the still remains a highly carbonaceous 
residue, or artificial asphalt. 

This new branch of industry, arising from 
the discovery of facts relative to the distillation 
of vegetable matter, which were hitherto un- 
known, began to prosper and to develop itself 
rapidly, especially since it was found that not 
only coal but such abundant material as | 
and many calcareous schists, would likewise 
yield oils. 

Indeed, science established the fact, that, in 

- the process of carbonization, all vegetable and 

animal tissues furnish some identical products. 

Thus, paraffine results from the preparation 
of bone black, and also enters into the compo- 
sition of soot, and even tobacco smoke. 

In many countries, mighty layers of bitumi- 
nous rocks, hitherto barren and unprofitable, 
could thus be turned into an immense capital. 
Again, the peat swamps of Ireland constitute 
a seventh part of the surface of the whole 
country ; peat, as a fuel, situated as it was in 
the vicinity of the rich English coal mines, was 



DISTILLATION OF COAL TAR. 51 

valueless, and, in an agricultural point of view, 
a curse to the country. Now, the picture was 
reversed, as thousands of diligent hands, while 
furnishing human society with most useful pro- 
ducts, were producing for themselves their 
daily bread. And, further still, on the conti- 
nent of Europe, as in Germany, France, &c, 
where the production of animal oils and fats is 
meagre, large tracts of lands were before culti- 
vated with plants yielding oil-bearing seeds, 
such as rape, flaxseed, camelina, sativa (golden 
pleasure), &c, upon which wheat and other 
grains may now be raised. 

Tallow and animal oils, employed for candle 
and soap making, lubricators, &c, may be 
turned to other account ; indeed, chemistry has 
commenced to convert some animal fats into 
artificial butter, which, at least, for frying and 
baking purposes, proves highly valuable. The 
following results, obtained by chemical analysis, 
may be taken as the average quantity of pro- 
ducts derived from the distillation of schists 
and turf: — 



52 



COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 



One hundred parts of a bituminous slate of 
Wurtemberg yielded — 

Tar ' 9.63 

Water and ammonia . . 8.33 

Gas 12.36 

Eesidue (coke, rocky matters) 68.68 



mu.oo 



Onehundredpartsof theabovetar furnislicd- 



Light oil or photagen . 


. 2! 


Heavy or lubricating oil 


. -11.94 


ParafTme 


.12 


Crcasote 


19 


Carbon residue or asphalt 


18 


Gas and loss 


1.13 



100.00 

One hundred parts of peat or turf from nan- 
over, dried in the air, yielded — 

• Tar 9.06 

Ammoniacal liquor . . 40.00 

Coke 35.32 

Gas and loss .... 15.02 



100.00 



DISTILLATION OF COAL TAR. 



53 



One hundred parts of this tar gave — 
Li<?htoil .... 19.46 



Heavy oil 


. 19.55 


Paraffine 


. 3.31 


Asphalt 


. 17.19 


Creasote and loss . 


. 40.49 



100.00 

Whence by a simple calculation we find that 
100 parts of this turf will furnish — 

Light oil . . . . 1.76 parts 
Heavy oil . . . . 1.77 " 
Paraffine .... 0.30 " 
Asphalt .... 1.56 " 
The chemical works established in the county 
, of Kildare, Ireland, are capable of working up 
one hundred tons of peat per day. Every ton 
of peat yields three pounds of paraffine, two 
gallons of volatile oil, adapted for burning, 
and one gallon of fixed oil, for lubricating 
purposes, all separated from the five to six gal- 
lons of tar furnished by one ton of peat. Be- 
sides, each ton of peat yields sixty-five gallons 
5* 









54 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

of ammoniacal liquor, containing a list of 
useful substances; for all practical purposes it 
suffices to mention ammonia, acetic acid, and 
pyroxilic spirit, &c, already described in con- 
nection with wood tar. 
One ton of peat affords — 

5J lbs. of ammonia, 

5 lbs. of acetic acid, and 

8 lbs. of naphtha. 
Besides, some of the tar Residue or asphalt 
may be converted into a valuable grease or 
lubricator for the axles of carriages, railroad 
cars, &c. Peat tar itself is an excellent pre- 
ventive of the fouling of ships' bottoms, suc- 
cessfully resisting those marine incrustations, 
whether of an animal or vegetable nature, so 
detrimental and injurious to shipping. An 
experiment, made in Scotland, proved that 
one side of a schooner, to which it was applied, 
presented at the end of six months the same 
clean appearance as when laid on, while the 
other side, on which was put the usual compo- 
sition or paint, became so fouled as to require 
cleaning during that time. 



DISTILLATION OF COAL TAR. 55 

Variation of the Products of Distillation, ac- 
cording to Different Temperatures. — Experience 
teaches that the relative proportion and the 
chemical nature of the products of distillation 
vary not only with the different materials em- 
ployed, whether w6od, coal, or turf, but also 
. according to the temperature to which one and 
the same substance is subjected. Thus, if we 
desire to obtain the greatest amount of perma- 
nent gas from coal, it ought to be rapidly decom- 
posed — i. e t) heated to a temperature of 800 to 
1,000 degrees F. If it be our purpose to pro- 
cure the greatest amount of fluids, no tempera- 
ture above 700 degrees F. is admissible. 
Hence, it follows that the manufacture of 
illuminating gas, and that of photogenic oils, 
cannot be combined with economy; neither 
can the process of tar and coke making with 
the production of volatile oils, as was at first 
imagined to be practicable. 

Coal heated to a strong red heat, 980 degrees 
F., yields a maximum quantity of tar, but the 
fatty bodies separable therefrom by fractional 
distillation are mainly naphtha (benzole) and 



56 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

naphthaline, a crystallizable solid, but no pa- 
raffine. Neither of the first two are desirable 
constituents of lamp-oils. The chief ingredients 
of these are compounds evolved after the 
naphtha ceases to come over, and before naph- 
thaline is produced. That is, to say again 
what was previously mentioned, the manufac- 
ture of photogenic oils terminates where that 
of illuminating gas commences. 

Faraffinized oils are generated from coal be- 
tween 350 and 700 deg. F. The manufacture 
of coal oils may be advantageously accom- 
plished at a much lower temperature, by per- 
mitting super-heated steam to flow through 
the retorts, or by conducting the distillation in 
a partial vacuum, like the boiling down of 
cane sugar. 

The retorts, in which the distillation of coal 
is conducted, are of iron or clay, and shaped 
much like those in gas works. The exit tube 
for the products, inserted at the end opposite 
to the mouth, is of considerable length, and 
kept cool by a constant stream of cold water. 
The gases, after passing through this pipe, 



DISTILLATION OF COAL TAR. 57 

enter into a large iron cylinder filled with 
coke, which removes the last traces of the tar 
they contain; thence they are suffered to es- 
cape into a chimney of strong draft. 

The liquid products of distillation flow into 
a large reservoir, kept at a temperature of 
86° F., in which tar separates from the am- 
moniacal waters ; these waters are mixed with 
the residue of the large retorts, and furnish a 
rich manure, or are turned into sal-ammoniac. 

It has been calculated that in England alone 
4000 tons of this salt are annually thus ob- 
tained. This important compound was, at one 
time, imported from Egypt, where it was first 
prepared by the distillation of camels' dung, 
near the temple of Jupiter Ammon, from which 
it takes its- name. 

The tar and its crude oils are next pumped 
into a purifying apparatus, made of cast-iron, 
and mixed with a few per cent, of copperas, to 
free it from sulphide of ammonium. If the 
coal contains a good deal of sulphur at first, it 
is sprinkled over with caustic lime before being 
distilled, as sulphur compounds impart to 



58 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

burning coal a very bad odor. After this the 
tar is brought into regular stills, holding seve- 
ral hundred gallons, and heated over a free fire 
or with superheated steam. The oily volatile 
products of distillation are condensed in a 
leaden coil, 30 to 40 feet long. 

The following products may be separately 
collected by a fractional distillation : — * 

1. A thin, volatile, very inflammable liquid, 
lighter than water (spec. grav. 0.8) — i. e., crude 
naphtha. 

2. An oily mixture, heavier than water, 
called solar oil, which continues to come over 
until the temperature approaches 400° ; it is 
best suited for a burning fluid for lamps (ar- 
gands) with a round wick, allowing the air 
access into the interior of the flame. 

3. Paraflinized oil, so called from its con- 
taining largely parafline ; it is well-adapted as 
a lubricator. 

Mixtures of 1 and 2 burn very readily, and 
those of Nos. 2 and 3 furnish an excellent ma- 
chine oil. 

* Dr. Antisell's Treatise on Coal Oils. 



DISTILLATION OF COAL TAR. 59 

The rest of No. 3, not used for mixing, is 
exposed in vats to a low temperature for seve- 
ral weeks ; when it crystallizes it is submitted 
to the hydraulic press, melted again, and puri- 
fied with concentrated sulphuric acids and po- 
tassa solution. 

The residue left in the still forms a tarry 
mass, which by means of caustic soda may be 
converted into a black soapy grease used as a 
lubricator of wagons and railroad cars. 



60 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 



CHAPTER V. 

PURIFICATION OF COAL OIL OR KEROSENE, AND 
OF BITUMINOUS OILS, TOGETHER WITH A 
BRIEF HISTORY OF THESE OILS; AND O 
PARISON OF ARTIFICIAL PRODUCTS WITH 
THOSE FOUND IN NATURE. 

IIaving, on a former occasion, already 
alluded to the qualities and chemical composi- 
tion of burning and lubricating oils, showing 
that these are neutral compounds, being, in 
other words, indifferent towards acids as well 
as alkalies, while the pernicious admixtures 
readily combine with these chemicals, the prin- 
ciple and methods of purification suggest 
themselves as deserving of a small portion of 
our attention. 

In addition to the redistillation (or rectifica- 
tion) of crude tar oils, whereby traces of tar and 






PURIFICATION OF COAL OILS. 61 

other highly carbonaceous solids and liquids 
suspended in the oil are removed, chemical 
purifiers are employed; amongst these are 
principally sulphuric acid and caustic soda. 
The oil is agitated or churned for several 
hours with about five per cent, of its weight of 
sulphuric acid* at a temperature of from 75° 
to 90° F. It is then allowed to settle, and 
drawn off into a second purifier, and mixed 
with five per cent, of caustic soda solution (or 
lime-water), and the whole stirred for two or 
three hours, and left to repose ; having gone 
through this process, the oil is once more dis- 
tilled. Sulphuric acid unites with several 
heavy hydrocarbons and detaches them from 
the lighter oils upon which it has no action ; 
the soda answers the double purpose of neu- 
tralizing an excess of acid, and of removing 
creasote or carbolic acid. 

* Manganate of potassa and nitric acid are used for the 
same purpose ; -others purify each separate oil with sis 
per cent, of sulphuric acid ; one-eighth per cent, bichro- 
mate of potassa ; two and one-half per cent, muriatic 
acid. 

6 



02 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 



Brief IIistory of Bituminous, and Kero- 
sene or Bmpyreumatic Oils. 

It is on the continent of Europe, where 
whale and other animal oils and fats are high 
in price, and the supply of vegetable oils in- 
sufficient, that the distillation of natural tar 
or asphalt and bituminous slate was first re- 
sorted to in order to obtain illuminating oils. 
As early as 1819 the celebrated savant, De 
Saussure, in Switzerland, distilled bituminous 
limestone, and pronounced the oil obtained 
therefrom identical with that derived from the 
native petroleum of Amiano, in Italy. For 
more than twenty years past lamp oils were 
extensively prepared in Germany and France 
from wood, rosin, schists, and bitumen or 
asphalt. 

Tar oils obtained from animal substances, 
containing sulphur and phosphorus, have a 
penetrating offensive odor, and are tedious to 
purify, and hence less fit for practical purposes. 

The manufacture of bituminous oils in Great 



niSTORY. T>3 

Britain and this country is of much more 
recent growth, because the extensive pursuit 
of the whale fishery supplied all the wants 
of the market. Still, the manufacture of 
volatile oils from coal was first practised in 
land, and the process was in some respects 
new ; for we must call to mind that it is 
only quite lately that chemists look upon oils 
procured from coal, wood, native bitumen, &c, 
nalogous, if not absolutely identical pro- 
ducts. This ignorance must now surprise us 
still more when we consider the origin of the 
material and recollect that even before the pro- 
duction of illuminating gas, large amounts of 
coal were distilled simply to obtain tar to satisfy 
the necessities of the English navy and mercan- 
tile marine — wood tar being, though preferable, 
too expensive. The English process of obtain- 
ing these useful oils from the distillation of 
coal was, from selfish motives, kept secret at 
first, and even samples of oils withheld from the 
exhibitions of all nations at Paris in It 

The first empyreumatic oil was manufactured 
in this country in ISoO, at Brooklyn, New York, 



64 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

by distilling wood and rosin together, a jet of 
high pressure steam being conducted through 
the retorts. The writer visiting the factory, and 
being consulted about its utility as a burning 
fluid, found it would not burn without smoke, 
even in lamps consuming readily oil of turpen- 
tine. There was at that time no lamp invented 
with a sufficient draft to burn completely such 
highly carbonaceous oils, whence wood and coal 
oils, as light-furnishing medium?, found at first 
but a slow access into dwellings. The earlier 
constructed lamps separated a very fine carbon 
or soot, which, settling imperceptibly upon the 
faces of a company, often presented a ludicrous 
spectacle. These oils were in earlier times sent 
to market in a crude and unrefined state, and 
consequently were ill calculated to win public 
favor. Their bad creasotedike odor was enough 
to cause their rejection at first by persons of 
delicate sensibilities ; but gradually every ob- 
stacle was overcome, and little more could be 
objected against their general adoption and 
use. 

The manufacture of coal oil in this country 



HISTORY. 65 

was first introduced in 1853, and was generally 
confined to districts where highly bituminous 
(cannel) coal could be mined at a cheap price. 
Hence the States of Kentucky, Virginia, Penn- 
sylvania, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois became 
great centres for its manufacture. 

The Lucesco works in Westmoreland County, 
Pa., were perhaps the largest in the country, pro- 
ducing 6000 gallons of crude oil a day, which is 
also rectified there. At Brooklyn N. Y., were 
located the New York kerosene oil works, pro- 
ducing and refining 1000 gallons of oil daily. 
This factory was perhaps the only one far removed 
from the source of material, but New York 
being the great commercial market and a sea 
board city, the saving of expenses for transpor- 
tation of the refined oil, compensated for extra 
outlays in shipping coal. In Franklin County, 
Va., near the Kanawha River, was a factory pro- 
ducing 1000 gallons of oil per day. The refin- 
ing operation was conducted at Maysville, Ky. 
In 1860 the total number of factories in the 
United States was over sixty. 
6* 



66 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 



Comparison of Artificial Products with 
those found in nature. 

Natural products, closely resembling the 
artificial ones alluded to, have been found in 
many localities all over the world for ages past. 
Some escape as gases from crevices of rocks ; 
others are liquid, and exude through the soil 
in drop?, or spout out through fissures in the 
rocks like fountains; others, again, of a solid 
shape, arc imbedded beneath the earth's sur- 
face. The complete chemical analogy between 
both classes was not dreamed of for some time, 
and was only ascertained step by step in the 
gradual progress of science. Thus the close 
connection, if not identity, of the natural pro- 
duct, long known under the synonymous 
names of naphtha, mineral naphtha, petroleum, 
rock oil, and seneca oil, with coal oil, was 
experimentally established, its importance ap- 
preciated, and its value understood, long after 
the same article, artificially produced, had 
attracted, by its vast commercial value, the 



ARTIFICIAL AND NATURAL PRODUCTS. 67 

notice of the civilized world. The following 
table will enable the general reader to get a 
comparative view of the two classes of artificial 
and native products corresponding to one 
another. 



ARTIFICIAL PRODUCTS FROM 
FIT OR BITUMINOUS COAL. 

1. Illuminating gas. 



2. Thin or light oil of coal 
tar, containing benzole, &c 



3. Thick or heavy oil of 
coal tar, containing paraf- 
fine. 



4. Artificial asphalturn 
(pitch of pit coal.) 



PRODUCTS OCCURRING NATIVE 
IN THE EARTH. 

1. Inflammable gases (sa- 
cred fire of the 'Brahmins), 
issuing here and there from 
crevices of the rocks. 

2. Naphtha, a thin and 
nearly colorless variety of 
rock oil oozing out of the 
earth in Italy and Persia, 
and containing benzole. 

3. Mineral tar, found in 
many places in Persia, Anie- 
rica, and France. It is 
darker and more viscid than 
rock oil, and contains paraf- 
fine. 

4. Natural asphalturn (or 
pitch of Judea), found in 
the Dead- Sea, and other 
Asiatic seas. It contains 
paranaphthaline. 



68 



COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 



ARTIFICIAL PRODUCTS FROM 
PIT OR BITUMINOUS COAL. 

5. Ammoniacal erupyreu- 
matic liquid. 



6. Coke as produced and 
seen in all gas works. It is 
a porous and light carbon. 



PRODUCTS OCCURRING NATIVE 
IN THE BAKE. 

5. Ammonia, issuing in 
watery vapor, a 

with boraoio arid, from the 
earth of Tuscany. 

6. Anthracite coal in im- 
mense bedfl in Pennsylva- 
nia. It la a compact and 
heavy carl -on, owing to the 

enarmoui pressure to which 
it has been 



The following organic substances are allied 
to the native bitumens mentioned in the pre- 
vious table. 

1. Elastic bitumen, mineral caouicliov.c. — This 
curious body has hitherto been found in three 
places: In a lead mine at Castleton in Derby- 
shire, at Montrelais in France, and in Massa- 
chusetts in America. In the latter localities it 
occurs in the coal series. It is fusible, and 
resembles in many respects the other bitumens. 

2. Retinite or Belinas2)haU. — It is found in 
brown coal, and constitutes a fossil resin, 



ARTIFICIAL AND NATURAL PRODUCTS. 69 

which has a yellow color, is fusible and in- 
flammable, and largely soluble in alcohol. 

3. Hatchetin, similar to the last named, is 
met with in mineral coal-beds at Merthyr 
Tydvil, and near Loch Fyne in Scotland. 

4. Idrialin is found associated with native 
cinnabar, and is extracted from the ore by oil 
of turpentine. It constitutes a white crystal- 
line substance, composed of C 42 H 14 0; it is 
generally associated with a hydrocarbon idril, 
which contains C 42 H 14 . 

5. Ozo7ceriie, or fossil wax, occurs in Molda- 
via and Switzerland in bituminous shale or 
brown coal. It is brownish and has a pearly 
lustre. It fuses below 212° F., is easily 
soluble in turpentine, but with difficulty in 
alcohol and ether. 



70 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 



CHAPTER VI. 

PETROLEUM OR ROCK OIL— ITS CHEMICAL COM- 
POSITION— ILLUMINATING POWER. 

Petroleum is named from r pctm ) a rock, and 
oleum } oil. This highly important native com- 
pound, analogous in every respect to the kero- 
sene oils just described, will next engage our 
attention. It is, like these, a mixture of a g 
many chemically different substances, and, as 
proved by its composition, is evidently of or- 
ganic origin. 

Petroleum and its manifold products find an 
almost endless application in science, art, and 
in practical life. 

It is used in the preparation of paints and 
varnishes, the lighter portion or naphtha dis- 
tilled from it, dissolving caoutchouc, camphor, 
fatty and resinous bodies generally, and when 



PETROLEUM OR ROCK OIL. 71 

hot even sulphur and phosphorus. It forms a 
substitute for fish-oil in tanning. Petroleum 
soap is already a favorite toilet article. 

Aniline and its brilliant colors may perhaps 
be prepared from the waste petroleum after 
refining it. Petroleum forms an already valu- 
able caloric. 

Thomas Shaw, in an article in the "Ame- 
rican Gas Light Journal," in which he advo- 
cates the economy of the use of oil as fuel, says, 
"that the heating value of 100 pounds of coal 
average quality, spec. grav. 1.279, is equivalent 
to raising 812,307 pounds of water 1° C, The 
heating value of 100 pounds of petroleum is 
equivalent to raising 1,231,600 pounds of 
water 1° C, making the heating value of coal 
as compared with petroleum, as 1 is to 1.51. 
This is the calculated value of their component 
parts." 

It furnishes, as generally known, photogenic 
and lubricating fluids. It has proved to be 
an efficient remedy like ordinary coal oil, es- 
pecially in ulcers and cutaneous diseases. Pe- 



72 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

troleum vapors are said to act very beneficially 
in protracted cases of asthma and weak longs, 

Mr. Bobb states that the air in oil pits be- 
comes charged with vapors of an intoxicating 
effect 

The "American Druggist's Circular and 
Chemical Gazette," in speaking of a new ai 
thetic, says : u Dr. Gengcs has addressed a note 
to the French Academy, giving an aoCOUl 
some interesting experiments in trying new 
agents fur diminishing sensibility, lie has as- 
certained that a purified kcrosaline, obta 
from common petroleum, when vaporized by 
means of heat, will be found a most valuable 
anaesthetic." 

It is already well understood that amylcnc 
gas, closely allied to some of these hydrocar- 
bons, and which is obtained by decomposing 
chloride of amyle by fused hydrate of potash, 
acts on the system like chloroform, though 
with more dangerous eflects perhaps. 

It would not appear surprising if, in future, 
by the means pointed out by Berthelot,* vi- 

* Aim. de Cliimie, III., XI V. St 



PETROLEUM OR ROCK OIL. 73 

nous alcohol = (C 4 H 5 0,IIO) as well as wood- 
alcohol = (C 2 H 3 0,HO), and other kinds may be 
profitably manufactured from the so-abundant 
petroleum hydrocarbons. 

The two methods to prepare alcohols by 
synthesis from hydrocarbons are based upon — 

1st. In fixing oxygen upon those of the for- 
mula C 2 nH 2 n + 2, i. e n marsh gas and its horno- 
logues. 

2d. In fixing the elements of water upon 
those of the composition C 2 nH 2 n, i. e., olefiant 
gas and its homologues. 

Thus Berthelot obtained wood or methylic 
alcohol artificially by acting upon marsh gas 
by chlorine, and decomposing the chloride 
thus obtained by means of a solution of potash. 

Common or vinous alcohol may be prepared 
synthetically, by forming a solution of olefiant 
gas in oil of vitriol, which dissolves about one 
hundred and twenty times its bulk of the gas; 
then diluting the mixture, and submitting it 
to distillation. 

Chemical Composition of Petroleum. — De La 
7 



74 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

Eue and IT. Muller* have examined the Bir- 
mese naphtha or Rangoon petroleum. 

It is obtained by sinking wells about sixty 
feet deep, in which the liquid is collected as it 
oozes out from the soil. At a common tem- 
perature it has the consistency of goose fat ; it 
is lighter than water, and has usually a green- 
ish-brown color; it has a slight, peculiar, but 
not unpleasant odor. It is composed almost 
entirely of volatile constituents, about 11 per 
cent, of which come off below 212° F. The 
fixed residue does not amount to more than 4 
per cent, if it be distilled in a current of super- 
heated steam. About 10 or 11 per cent, of 
the volatile matters consists of solid parafline. 
AVhen the liquid portion is agitated with oil 
of vitriol, some of its constituents enter into 
combination with the acid ; but the greater 
part remain unaltered by this agent. In the 
portion which combines with the acid, benzole, 
toluole, xylole and cumole, have been identi- 
fied, and there are several basic substances, 
which have not as yet been completely exa- 

* Proceed. Roy. Soc, VIII. 221. 



PETROLEUM OR ROCK OIL. 7o 

mined. The liquid, from which the hydrocar- 
bons of the benzole series have been removed 
by the action of the oil of vitriol, constitutes 
naphtha. It may be purified by repeated agi- 
tation with sulphuric acid, washing with water, 
and rectification from quicklime. It is then 
fit for the preservation of such alkaline metals 
as potassium, sodium, etc. 

Prof. Vohl has published an analysis of 
Eangoon oil. Spec. grav. 0.885. 

It yielded by distillation and rectification : — 
Illuminating oil, spec. grav. 0.830 . 40.705 
Lubricating oil .... 40.999 

Paraffine, fusing at 60° F. . . 6.071 

Asphalt 4.605 

Loss (carbolic acid ? etc.) . . . 7.620 



100.000 



The following analysis of Barbadoes tar was 
executed by Charles Humfrey ("Technologist," 
March, 1863):— 

The specimen was of a dark-brown color, 
very viscid, with faint pleasant smell. Spec, 
grav. 0.940. 



76 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

10 ounces gave : — 

Water i oz. 

Crude oil, No. 1, spec. grav. 0.912 . 5 ozs. 

" No. 2, " 0.927 ' . 4 " 

Coke 1 oz. 

10 ozs. 

No. 1, when refined, gave four ounces of 
fine oil, of a pale color, and very sweet; spec, 
grav. 0.908. No. 2 gave 2| ounces of fine oil, 
of a dark color, and some empyreumatic smell ; 
spec. grav. 0.918. 

But it is on the American continent that 
the most copious petroleum springs and wells 
have been developed within the past few years. 
The principal and richest oil reservoirs are 
situated in Pennsylvania and Canada. Other 
deposits have been ascertained to exist in Ohio, 
Western Virginia, Kentucky, New York, 
Michigan, and it is probable will be found in 
Kansas, Tennessee, Alabama, California, and 
Indiana. 

The annexed table comprises the average 
composition of American and Canada petro- 
leum according to A. N. Tate, chemist, Liver- 



PETROLEUM OR ROCK OIL. 



77 



pool. These analyses were made for the 
purpose of ascertaining the quantities of the 
different products to be obtained from each. 
The specific gravity of the spirit and burning oil 
has been fixed at 0.735 and 0.820 respectively. 





1 


2 


3 


4 




Sp. gr. 

0.802 


Sp. gr. 
0.815 


Sp. gr. 
0.835 


Sp. gr. 

0.S02 


Spirits sp. gr. 0.735 
Lamp oil sp. gr. 0.820 
Lubricating oil . . 
Paraffiue .... 

Coke 

Loss 


14.7 

41.0 

39.4 

2.0 

2.1 

0.8 


15.2 

39.5 

38.4 

3.0 

2.7 

1.2 


12.5 

35.8 

43.7 

3.0 

3.2 

1.8 


4.3 
44.2 

45.7 
2.7 
2.2 
0.9 




100.0 


100.0 


100.0 


100.0 



Nos. 1 and 2. Pennsylvania petroleum of a 
dark greenish color, and ethereal odor. 

No. 3. Canadian petroleum of a brown color 
and garlic odor. 

No. 4. Similar to the former, and also from 
the United States; precise locality unknown. 

Pelouze and Cahours* have made a beautiful 
and thorough analysis of American petroleum, 

* Comptes Rendu, LYI. 505 ; Journ. f. pract. Chemie, 
Bd. 29, Heft 5 and 6. AnnaL der Ch. und Pharm., Bd. 
LI. Heft 2. 

7* 



78 



COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 



which was exported to France where it is 
rectified. It is especially the more volatile 
constituents, boiling below 392° F., that have 
hitherto been examined into by these dis- 
tinguished chemists. They have isolated as 
many as twelve distinct hydrocarbons, all 
homologous with marsh gas C 2 II 4 , or, as it may 
be looked upon, hydride of methyle = C 2 U 3 ,TI. 
The boiling point (/. e., the temperature at 
which it assumes a gaseous form) of the most 
volatile oil is a few degrees above 32° 1\,* and 
it contains probably hydride of butyle. It is 
also found to be one of the products of the 
distillation of coal at low temperatures. The 
formulas, specific gravities, and boiling points 
of these hydrocarbons are the following: — 









1 'INT. 


Hydride of Butyle 


Ce^io 






M 


" Am vie 


CjQllp 






CI 


11 Caproyle 


^12^14 


0.669 


154.4 M 


U 


" (Enanthyle 


C lt l *i6 


197.6-201.2 M 


II 


" Capryle 


^16^18 


240.8-244.4 " 


fl 


" lYlargyle 


^18^20 


0.741 276.8-280.4 M 


II 


u f Caprinyle 
\ Rutyle 


^mPm 


0.75? 


320.0-323.6 " 


II 


" Hendekayle 


^B"ai 


0.766 


35G.0-3G3.2 



* Erdmann's Journ. fur Prakt. Cheniie, Bd. 89, 18G3. 
Heft 5 and 6, p. 360, 



PETROLEUM OR ROCK OIL. 



79 



Hydride of Lauryle 
" " Cocinyle 
" " Myristyle 

Not named yet . . 



Composition 



C 24 H 26 
^26 ^28 



Sp. Gr. 
at 6S° F. 



0.776 

0.792 



Boiling Point. 



384.8-392.0O F. 
420.8-424.4 " 
456.8-464.0 " 
491.0-500.0 "* 



In addition to the mentioned class of hydro- 
carbons, Pelouze and Cahours found paraffine to 
be a constant ingredient of American petro- 
leum. They think it probable that there 
exists in it several solid hydrocarbons homo- 
logous with paraffine, forming mixtures similar 
to the liquid hydrocarbon series. These 
chemists will make this a matter of future 
study. 

The following is the result of an analysis of 
Canadian petroleum made by Dr. S..Muspratt. 
100 parts of Enniskillen oil yielded in distilla- 
tion : — 



* The latter four have recently been described in Comp- 
tes Rendu, LVII. 62 ; also Journ. fur Prakt. Chemie, 92 
Bd. 2 Heft, p. 99, Leipzig, 1864. 



80 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

Light-colored naphtha, sp. gr. 0.794 
Heavy yellow naphtha, sp. gr. 0.837 
Lubricating oil rich in paraffine 
Tar . . 

Charcoal 

Loss ...... 



20 

50 

22 

5 

1 

2 

100 



The Canadian oils and those of the State of 
Michigan have, like those found in South Ame- 
rica and the West Indies, an offensive garlicky 
odor, which distinguishes them at once from 
most oils of the United States. The 
smell is chiefly owing to sulphur, and Tate 
traced likewise small quantities of phosphorus 
and arsenic in the Canadian oils. 

From chemical analysis we are justified in 
considering the following difference between 
coal oils and petroleum established. 

The coal oils contain the hydrides of the 
alcohol radicals, homologous to marsh gas 
C n II n + 2, in a small proportion, but the 
hydrocarbons of the benzole, and toluole series, 
in large quantity. , 



PETROLEUM OR ROCK OIL. 81 

Petroleum contains mere traces of benzole 
if any at all, but is mainly made up of the 
hydrides of the alcohol series of hydrocarbons. 

Whilst Pelouze and Cahours and others 
find no benzole in the American petroleum, 
Schorlemmer, of Manchester, on the contrary, 
states that it contains small quantities of ben- 
zole and toluole. Mr. Murphy, of Liverpool, 
could trace no benzole in petroleum, except in 
one or two cases in minute quantity, and then 
he believed it was produced by decomposition 
during his experiments. 

Tate was unable to detect it in any specimen 
of the crude oil he examined, but found it in 
several specimens of the " turpentine substi- 
tute," also sold under the names of "benzine," 
and " petroleum spirits." This is obtained upon 
distilling American petroleum: the first pro- 
duct passing over has a specific gravity 0.680, 
and is called " kerosolene ;" the next is a spirit 
somewhat heavier, and this has been called, 
though wrongly, benzine, although it may in 
many cases be used as a good substitute. Both 
the kerosolene and benzine are frequently 



82 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

collected together, and form the turpentine 
substitute above referred to. It is believed 
that the small amount of real benzine traceable 
therein results from decomposition during the 
process of distillation. 

As Mr. Schorlemmer examined these same 
lighter portions of crude petroleum, we can 
account for his having expressed a different 
opinion. 

We have likewise been unable to recognize 
benzole in some few American oils, neither 
could we trace it in some kinds of the naphtha 
or turpentine substitutes employed by house 
painters. A fluid sold by our druggists for 
removing grease spots* and marked benzine, 
softened but failed to dissolve India rubber, 
and upon examination by Ilofmann's test 
proved to contain no real benzine. It is 
stated by some that in the Canadian oil ben- 
zole is found, but, strange as it may appear, 
we have been unable to procure any in the 
broker offices of New York and Philadelphia 
to examine it ourselves. Whether, at least, 
some specimens of American or Canadian oils 
are analogous to Birmese naphtha, in which De 



PETROLEUM OR ROCK OIL. 83 

La Eue and Miller found benzole, toluole, etc., 
we have had no means of determining thus far. 
This is an important point in regard to the 
manufacture of aniline colors as yet generally 
imported from, abroad. If American petro- 
leum does not, like the Birmese naphtha, or 
like artificial coal oil, furnish benzole, then, of 
course, no nitro-benzole, the cheapest and most 
abundant source of aniline, would be yielded. 
The small amount of the ready formed alkaloid 
present and removed by acid washings in the 
refining operations, would, perhaps, not pay the 
trouble of isolating it. 



84 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 



CHAPTER VII. 

REFINING OF PETROLEUM. 

The general principles followed in refining 
petroleum are identical with those described 
under kerosene oil. The crude oil is distilled 
in a common large iron still protected by brick- 
work to prevent the fire from playing directly 
on the still. Steam pipes are inserted into the 
still when steam is employed in the process of 
distillation. With the still a coil of iron pipes 
or condensing worm is connected, which is 
placed in a vat filled with water. This is kept 
Cold until paraffine oil begins to go over, when, 
to avoid its solidifying in the worm, it is kept 
at a temperature of 80° F. 

The distillation- is carried on without the 
use of steam until the remainder of the charge 
in the retort grows thick when cold. If this 



REFINING OF PETROLEUM. 85 

pitch is wished for, the operation is stopped at 
this point, otherwise steam is now passed into 
the neck or breast of the retort, which produces 
an outward current through the condenser, 
carrying over the rest of oils and leaving 
behind a compact coke. 

Common or previously super-heated steam 
has also been employed, being led into the 
charge during distillation; this plan is of 
decided advantage, especially for the distilla- 
tion of the heavy oils. 

The still patented by Abraham Quinn, of 
New York City, in 186S, and which appears 
\p be built upon an excellent plan, has the 
advantage of allowing the distillation to be 
carried on without interruption, a fresh supply 
of oil being constantly run into the still. 

The distillate is collected in two portions. 
The first has a specific gravity of 0.74, and 
forms the turpentine substitute of our paint 
shops, and is falsely sold as benzine. 

The second shows a specific gravity of 0.82, 
and is well suited for lamp oil ; the balance of 
8 



86 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

heavier oils is either transferred to the next 
charge, or kept as lubricating oil. 

These two products are then each agitated 
for some hours with five to ten per cent, of 
sulphuric acid, allowed to settle, drawn off, and 
next agitated with water, and finally with five 
to ten per cent, of caustic soda liquor, specific 
gravity 1.40. After some hours' repose the 
alkali is drawn off', the oils once more washed 
with water, and again carefully distilled. 

During all these operations the temperature 
of the oils ought to be maintained at about 
90° F. The heavier portions of the distillate 
from crude petroleum form different kinds of 
lubricators. The best variety is that which 
follows after the burning oil has passed over. 
The residue or coke left behind in the still 
varies from five to ten per cent. 

The garlicky odor of Canadian oils can be 
got rid of by the action of chemicals. By 
forcing them simply through such deodorizing 
mixtures as charcoal and sand the purpose 
may be attained. 



ILLUMINATING POWER OF PETROLEUM. 87 



Illuminating Power of Petroleum. 

The following table, extracted from a lecture 
on artificial light by Dr. Frankland ("Chemical 
News," Feb. 21, 1863), shows the illuminating 
power of petroleum as compared with the light 
evolved by other substances. The table is 
arranged so as to show the quantity of other 
materials required to give out the same amount 
of light as would be obtained from one gallon 
of Young's paraffine oil : — 



Young's paraffine 


oil 


. 




1.00 gallon 


American petroleum, 


No. 


1 


1.26 " 


u u 




CI 


2 . 


1.30 " 


Paraffine candles 




• 




18.6 pounds 


Sperm " 




. 




22.9 " 


Wax " 




• 




26.4 " 


Stearine " 




• 




27.6 " 


Composite " 




. 




29.5 " 


Tallow " 




m 




39.0 " 



88 



COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 



The next table* gives the comparative cost 
of light obtained from different illuminating 
materials, as compared with the light of twenty 
sperm candles, each burning ten hours at the 
rate of 120 grains per hour. 

Wax . 

Spermaceti 
Tallow 
Sperm oil . 
Coal gas 
Cannel gas 
Para (Tine candles 
Paraffine oil 

American petroleum (inferior) 
The table given below is taken from "Circle 
of Sciences," vol. i. p. 421. 



8. 


./. 


7 


21 


6 


8 


2 


8 


1 


10 





H 





3 


3 


10 





6 





7# 



Description of Oil. 


p 

Prick per 


81TY of 


known of 


•P AN 




Gallon. 


LlOHT TiY 


Light rmou 


. AL 








Photometer. 


Eqial 
Quantity. 


QUANTITY 

Of Limrr in 




8. 


d. 








Petroleum 


2 





13.7 


2.60 


2.00 


Sperm . . . 


7 


6 


2.0 


0.95 


20.00 


Camphene 


5 





5.0 


1.30 


10.00 


Rape or Colza 


4 





1.5 


0.70 


14.60 


Whale . . 


2 


9 


2.4 


0.85 


8.25 



* Tate's Petroleum and its Compounds, London, 1863. 



HISTORY OF PETROLEUM OR ROCK OIL. 39 



CHAPTER VIII. 

HISTORY OF PETROLEUM OR ROCK OIL. 

The at present seemingly inexhaustible 
quantity of native bituminous oils has ren- 
dered their manufacture from any material, 
no matter how cheap and abundant, unprofit- 
able. Nature distils free of charge. Indeed, 
it has almost ruined the whaling business; the 
old oil .merchants sold their ships in many 
instances to the United States Government at 
the outbreak of the war, for the purpose of 
blockading Southern ports, and turned their 
establishments into refineries for the purifica- 
tion of petroleum, and have been obliged greatly 
to multiply the number of stills and vats in 
these. Although before the present war native 
petroleum was generally unknown in the 
country, it is not to be supposed that its dig- 
8* 



90 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

covery is new ; on the contrary, it dates back 
to the remotest antiquity. 

The liquid bitumens or petroleum, when ex- 
posed to the air, abstract oxygen therefrom, 
turning gradually into solid asphaltum ; in this 
form they were in ancient times used for build- 
ing purposes. In building the ancient city of 
Nineveh it appears that asphalt was employed 
as a mortar, and was probably prepared by 
the evaporation of petroleum. We find it also 
stated that the builders of Babel used "clay 
for bricks, and slime for mortar." (Gen. xi. 
3.) It is well known that melted asphalt, 
together with sand, constitutes a superior mix- 
ture for roofing felt, for covering floorings, 
and for sidewalks. The latter process was 
first introduced in Neufchatel, Switzerland. 
Artificially prepared, tar may be similarly 
employed, after it has been deprived of its 
oil by distillation. The catastrophe of Sodom 
and Gomorrah may have had some connec- 
tion with, if not been absolutely caused by 
vast natural stores of this inflammable petro- 
leum. At least, we find immense accumula- 
tions of hardened rock oil in the centre and 



HISTORY OF PETROLEUM OR ROCK OIL. 91 

around the shores of the Dead Sea, where it 
has been converted by oxidation into rosin-like 
asphalt. The pieces floating upon its waters 
are now frequently, in the convents of Jerusa- 
lem, cut into ornaments, such as rosaries, the 
beads of which, when genuine, have a strongly 
bituminous odor. Another early and curious 
use of petroleum was made by the Egyptians, 
whose religious belief in the return of departed 
spirits caused them to revolt against the law of 
nature commanding "dust to dust," &c. Not 
only was every human being embalmed, but 
also all the animals considered as sacred. In 
many cases, native bituminous matter appears 
to have been used as a preservative, its creasote 
rendering it a very excellent one. In this age 
of steam, utilitarianism, and curiosity, many of 
these mummies have been borne away by ma- 
rauding travellers, and, in some instances, have 
been used to supply the fires of locomotives. 
Thus has nature reclaimed her dues. It is not 
decided whether the Egyptians obtained native 
petroleum, as they might from the Island of 
Zante, on the west coast of Greece, whose 



92 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

springs are described by Herodotus, or whether 
they prepared artificial pyroligneous acid for 
the purpose of embalming. 

Another celebrated locality for bitumen, 
which dates back beyond the historic period, is 
Birmah, in the Rangoon district, upon the Irra- 
waddy in Northern Asia. Five hundred and 
twenty wells sunk in bods of sandy clay and 
clay slate, yield annually more than 
hogsheads of this oil, which ifl also known as 
Rangoon tar or Birmese naphtha. Through- 
out the whole empire of Birmah, and mauy 
other parts of India, it has been used for centu- 
ries for purposes of illumination, as a medio 
for rendering timber weather-proof, and for 
preserving it against insects. For two centu- 
ries, Amiano and other places in the north of 
Italy, have furnished a profusion of naphtha, 
and the cities of Genoa and Parma were lighted 
with it. Over large districts in Persia no other 
illuminating material is used. The phenomena 
it presents cause the region to be called the 
Field of Fire, an3 made Bakoo the sacred city 
of the Ghebers, or Fire-worshippers. On the 



HISTORY OF PETROLEUM OR ROCK OIL. 93 

island of Trinidad, in the West Indies, petro- 
leum exudes not only from springs and rocks 
in the usual way, but it has formed a lake two 
to three miles in circumference ; warm and 
liquid in the centre, where it seems always 
slowly boiling, but thickening as it recedes 
from this point, till at the margin it is cold and 
solid. Persons may walk upon it at pleasure 
when the weather is cool, but not so when 
it is hot. This Lake of Tar, as the inhabitants 
call it, is said, by travellers, to be underlaid 
with coal. Dr. Gesner gives the following 
description of it. 

"The bitumen, of the consistence of thin 
mortar, was flowing out from the sides of a hill, 
and making its way outwards over more com- 
pact layers towards the sea. As the semi-solid 
and sulphurous mineral advances, and is ex- 
posed to the atmosphere, it becomes more solid, 
but ever continues to advance and encroach 
upon the harbor. The surface of the bitumen 
is occupied by small ponds of water, clear and 
transparent, in which there are several kinds of 
beautiful fishes. The sea, near the shore, sends 
up considerable quantities of naphtha from sub- 



94 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

terranean springs, and the water is rfften 
covered with oil, which reflects the colors of 
the rainbow." 

In our own country, before its colonization, 
and perhaps before its discovery by Columbus, 
petroleum was known to the Seneca Indians. 
According to a tradition among them, its ex- 
istence was revealed to one of their chiefs by 
the Great Spirit in a dream, lie was directed 
to proceed to a certain spot, where he would 
find a liquid oozing from the ground, which 
should become a healing balm to his tribe. 
They seem to have collected it chiefly from 
the surface and banks of two streams, both of 
which have since received the names of Oil 
Creek; one being in Alleghany County, New 
York, and the other in Venango County, 
Pennsylvania. Along the borders of the latter 
there may still be seen the remains of ancient 
pits, which must have been dug by them to 
catch the exuding petroleum. They employed 
it for medicinal purposes, and in many religi- 
ous ceBemonies; but its chief use was as a 
medium for dissolving the rude paints with 



HISTORY OF PETROLEUM OR ROCK OIL. 95 

which they adorned themselves. They sold it 
to the early colonists as a specific for rheuma- 
tism and various other affections. The white 
people called it Seneca oil, after the tribe which 
chiefly used and bartered it, and considered it 
a rare and very efficacious remedy/ It is re- 
corded that the usual method of collecting it 
was to throw a log across one of the oil 
streams, and to stop the surface oil by laying' 
blankets upon this log. When it had accumu- 
lated sufficiently, they wrung the cloths over 
vessels provided to hold the liquid. More 
than a hundred years ago, at the time of the 
French and Indian war, the commandant of 
Fort Duquesne — which stood precisely where 
Pittsburg now stands— wrote a letter to Gene- 
ral Montcalm, in Canada, giving a vety inte- 
resting account of a great Indian assembly 
in the night on the banks of Oil Creek. In 
the midst of their ceremonies, the oil that had 
collected on the water was fired, and simulta- 
neously they shouted and danced about the 
flames. 

Although the white settlers learned all about 



96 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM, 

the oil springs from the Indians, they gathered, 
perhaps, not more than twenty barrels annu- 
ally, and this was solely consumed for medi- 
cinal purposes. The idea never seems to have 
struck them that, by deeper excavation, the 
supply might be much Increased, nor that its 
quality and usefulness could be much enhanced 
by distillation. 

Oil was first obtained by boring in 1819. In 
sinking wells for salt on the Little Muskingum 
River, in Ohio, one or two wells sunk dis- 
charged vast quantities of petroleum and gas 
in an explosive manner. Although Dr. II il- 
dreth states that it was in some demand for 
lamps in workshops and manufactories, and 
that he predicted that it would be a valuable 
article for lighting the streets of the future 
cities of Ohio, yet for over thirty years it was 
not used in this way. 

In 18-45, in boring for salt water upon the 
Alleghany Mountains, near Pittsburg, a petro- 
leum spring was struck, but its products were 
bottled and sold in drug shops at a high price. 

Id 1854 one of the springs on Oil Creek 



HISTORY OF PETROLEUM OR ROCK OIL. 97 

was purchased on speculation, and the oil 
examined and reported upon, but nothing 
further seems to have been done until 1858, 
when two New Haven gentlemen resolved to 
continue the search for oil wells. One of 
them, Colonel Drake, removed to Titusville, 
Crawford County, and began his arrangements 
for boring into the rock below the bed of the 
creek, and in August, 1858, the oil stratum was 
reached, at the depth of seventy feet. A pump 
was introduced, which raised at first four 
hundred gallons, and afterward one thousand 
gallons daily. Business immediately assumed 
a new aspect in Venango County and there- 
abouts. The wildest fever of speculation soon 
ensued. Lands rose enormously in price. 
The length of time considered necessary for 
the making of a fortune was that requisite 
for the sinking of a shaft. The land on either 
side of French Creek, Oil Creek, and part of 
Alleghany Eiver was perforated with wells, 
and the derricks for working the drills stood 
up in the yards and gardens of the villages as 
thick as rnasts in a harbor. The wells varied 



98 COAL OIL AXD PETROLEUM. 

in depth from sixty to six hundred feet. The 
Empire Spring was of the latter depth, with I 
hose leading from it to a reservoir three hun- 
dred feet higher; yet the pressure of the gas 
which issued with the oil forced it up the 
whole nine hundi t. The e< 

Phillips Well yielded three thousand barrels 

per day. When i well was apparently 

hausted, the supply could often be : 
by drilling a little 3 

In Ohio, not far from the Pennsylvania I 

der, the people had noticed a 

oil in the water of the vicinity, and this, , 

the success of the wells in Venango County, 

induced them to make a similar attempt. 
Petroleum was reached at the depth i 
feet; and within six months after this there 
had been seven hundred wells sunk. Kitchie 
and Wirt Counties, Virginia, have also been 
found to produce good oil. The first attempt 
in New York was made about a year and a 
half ago, in Alleghany County, near a famous 
pool, which had always been known as M the 
oil spring." Even before the iron pipes could 



HISTORY OF PETROLEUM OR ROCK OIL. 99 

be driven down to the rock, the oil, mingled 
with water, rushed up like a fountain. The 
jets of gas which accompany the petroleum 
are often very profuse and long continued. 
In Chautauqua County, N. Y., they have been 
secured and made use of to light the town of 
Fredonia, and the light-house in Portland Har- 
bor, on Lake Erie. 

Previously to this time, in consequence of 
the usefulness of the oily products of coal 
introduced by Mr. Young, in Glasgow, some 
gentlemen in Canada — foremost among whom 
was Mr. Williams, of Hamilton — formed 
themselves into a company, and acquired the 
lands in Enniskillen, on which superficial de- 
posits of a tarry bitumen occur. Their inten- 
tion was to use this substance as a substitute 
for coal in the manufacture of such oils, it 
having been ascertained to contain 80 per 
cent, of volatile matters. It was soon dis- 
covered that, on penetrating through the bitu- 
men into the clay beneath, the material could 
be obtained in large quantities in the fluid 
state. In 1857 Mr. Williams bored into the 
earth on the shore of Lake Huron, in Canada 



100 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

West, and pierced a reservoir of oil. His 
success at once induced the sinking of wells in 
Pennsylvania. 

The Canada oil district has surpassed all 
others in the immense amount it has produced, 
allowance being made for the fact that the num- 
ber of wells is comparatively small. In 1862 
the three hundred Enniskillen Wells, on Black 
Creek, produced, within an area of two square 
miles, at a minimum, four hundred gallons 
each per day. One of the wells spouted, for 
many days after it was finished, from four to 
five hundred thousand gallons daily. Another 
was only second to it in yield, and, with five 
or six others of remarkable richness, did con- 
tinue for several months to pour forth this 
flood of oil, much of which was wasted for 
want of proper reservoirs, or an adequate sup- 
ply of barrels. 

Petroleum coming from different localities 
often differs in consistency from the fluidity of 
naphtha to the viscidity of tar. In color, speci- 
mens vary from extreme yellow to deep black, 
and some have a greenish or reddish hue. 



HISTORY OF PETROLEUM OR ROCK OIL. 101 

The Canadian oils contain more paraffine in so- 
lution, and have a greater specific gravity (0.9) 
than American samples, which, while rich in 
light oils as a rule, have only the specific gravity 
0.8. 

The heavier hydrocarbon oils are non-ex- 
plosive and safe, while the use of the lighter 
and more volatile ones, such as naphtha, some- 
times sold under various fictitious names, as 
"liquid gas," "vesper gas," &c, are as dangerous 
as the older burning fluids, manufactured from 
strong alcohol and oil of turpentine, and which 
invariably exploded when their volatile vapors, 
mingled with atmospheric air, came in contact 
with a light. They have cost hundreds of lives 
in our country. 

The native coal oils of Pennsylvania and 
Canada belong to the first class — i. e., do not 
explode in lamps and cans. This has been 
determined by actual experiment. 

Of the samples of American petroleum, tested 

by the Manchester Sanitary Commission, two 

formed an explosive vapor with air at 60 deg. 

F.; four at 100 deg. F.; three at 120 deg. P., 

9* 



102 



COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 



and twenty at 150 deg. F. Nine specimens out 

of thirty-two were pronounced very dangerous. 

The British government has legislated on the 

subject, virtually forbidding the sale of those 

oils which take fire and explode at or below 

100 deg. F. The proportion of these light oils 

in petroleum may vary from thirty to ninety 

per cent. 

Fig. 1. 




N&phtometer. 






HISTORY OF PETROLEUM OR ROCK OIL. 103 

Several apparatus have been patented for 
the purpose of determining the temperature at 
which different kinds of petroleum are likely 
to explode. 

Parrish* recommends the following con- 
struction of which we give a drawing, Fig. 1. 

A thermometer F, inclosed in a capsule, 
passes through a cover D into the oil to be ex- 
amined. A tube with wick surrounded by a 
chimney S and a screen B are placed opposite 
the thermometer. The vessel is charged first 
with water upon which the oil is poured next 
and the apparatus heated in a water-bath and 
the wick lighted. 

Through the opening L an air current with 
an admixture of oil vapor is formed, which 
shortly takes fire with a slight explosion, put- 
ting out the flame. The temperature at which 
this happens is observed. 

Wells often take fire by accident, and the 
injury consequent, both to property and hu- 

* Proceedings of the Amer. Pharm. Association at the 
tenth annual meeting held in Philadelphia, 1862. 



101 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

man life, is the most serious. Says one writer: 
11 In the autumn of 1861, a well about three 
miles up Oil Creek was lighted by a cigar 
while thirty or forty people were standing about 
it, of whom fifteen were killed instantly by the 
explosion, and thirteen seriously injured. A 
column of fire with its head rising and falling 
from thirty to fifty feet continued to burn. 
The Little and Merrick well exploded on April 
17th of the same year, just after it had been 
deepened, and before the boring was finished. 
A most terrible scene ensued ; the atmosphere 
was filled with the sickening gas or flames, and 
the ground for a long distance was a sea of fire. 
Four wells lost everything, including 500 bar- 
rels of oil, and*much other property. Only six 
persons lost their lives, although a large crowd 
stood near at the time of the explosion. All 
night this magnificent spectacle was continued. 
A steady rush of pure oil, nearly one hundred 
feet in height, and never ceasing its flow, 
burned with the noise like the roar of a heavy 
surf, sending volumes of black smoke up over 
the tops of the surrounding hills." On another 



HISTORY OF PETROLEUM OR ROCK OIL. 105 

occasion no less than seven flowing and three 
pumping wells, with thirty thousand barrels of 
oil, and the surrounding woods, were in flames 
at once. The blazing surface of Oil Creek 
added to the grandeur of the sight. 

In some instances the gas has become ignited 
and burned for weeks, the mouth of the well 
being converted into a mighty gas burner, 
from which a flame has risen many feet in 
height. Only a few months ago, a gentleman by 
the name of Jacob Crowe was sinking a well 
on George's Creek, Fayette County, Pa., and 
when the drill struck the oil deposit, a powerful 
volume of carbo-hydrogen gases ascended to 
the surface, filled the atmosphere, and coming in 
contact with a stove in a shanty some distance 
from the well, a terrific explosion ensued, and 
flames darted into the air sixty feet high ! For- 
tunately no one was injured, and the flames 
were finally subdued; but the experienced 
borers never permit fire anywhere near the 
well upon which they are working. 

On Oil Creek most of the oil is found in the 
same stratum of sandstone; but in Canada it is 



106 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

often lodged in a magnesian limestone, judging 
from a specimen which we have examined. 

John Steele, of Oil Creek valley, is said to 
derive an annual income of $750,000 from 
wells on his premises. A correspondent of the 
New York Herald states that he was ferried 
across the creek by an "oil prince," aged fif- 
teen, heir to a million, coatless, hatless, and 
with but one suspender. 

Some idea of the magnitude which the oil 
business has reached, may be obtained from the 
fact that a strip of land two miles broad and 
twenty in length, on both sides of Oil Greek is 
estimated to-day at two hundred and fifty mil- 
lions of dollars ) ivorth four years ago but four 
dollars an acre. It will be borne in mind that 
this is but a very small portion of the oil region 
of Pennsylvania alone. 

The manufacture of barrels is also a good 
illustration of the same truth. In many parts 
of the State, whole communities of barrel- 
makers have sprung up, as in Birmah large 
villages of potters supply the earthen vessels 
there used for the same purpose. A serious 



HISTORY OF PETROLEUM OR ROCK OIL. 107 

loss was at first experienced from leakage. In 
a single journey to New York, a barrel of oil 
lost one-tenth, and this in spite of every pre- 
caution. The lighter oils of petroleum per- 
sistently penetrate the pores of every wood, so 
that in a voyage to Europe barrels often became 
entirely empty. Many inventions sought to 
remedy the difficulty, the most valuable of 
which is the following: a mixture of glue, gly- 
cerine, and molasses being melted, is applied to 
the inner surface of the barrel, and is then 
washed with a solution of tannin. By this pro- 
cess a leather-like compound is formed, which 
securely confines the most penetrating oils* 
The same compound, with the exception of the 
glycerine, is used in the formation of printers' 
rollers. 

Another process of lining barrels consists in 
the employment of soluble glass or silicate of 
potash, either alone or in union with other 
substances. 

A recent number of the "American Druggists' 
Circular" contains the following statements : — 



108 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

Petroleum in Pennsylvania, — The Petroleum 
produced in the State of Pennsylvania was sold 
at the wells for §56,000,000 during the last 
twelve months, while the iron and coal of 
Pennsylvania only produced §50,000,000. In 
Philadelphia the daily sales of petroleum stocks 
at the regular stock exchange board are over 
$200,000. The number of petroleum compa- 
nies organized is about one hundred and fifty, 
and in New York about eighty. 

Petroleum in PittsLnrg. — The whole number 
of petroleum refiners in Pittsburg is fifty-eight, 
with a total capacity per week of 20,000 barrels. 
The value of real estate, buildings, and ma- 
chinery is $2,534,000, and the value of oils 
refined, 88, 591), 223, and the wages paid per 
annum amount to §350,000. 



BORING OF OIL WELLS. 109 



CHAPTER IX. 

BORING OF OIL WELLS. 

Petroleum occurs in rocks of very different 
geological ages, from the lower Silurian up to 
the Tertiary period, inclusive. In Europe and 
Asia these deposits are mostly confined to the 
more recent secondary and tertiary formations, 
whilst in the United States the oil wells are 
mostly sunk in the sandstones which form the 
summit of the Devonian strata. Those of 
Enniskillen, near Lake St. Clair, in Canada, are 
situated much lower in the carniferous lime- 
stone. Petroleum is seen to impregnate mostly 
limestones, sandstones, and shales. The rule 
amongst miners is, that the harder the rock 
may be to drill, the lighter in color, purer in 
quality, and smaller in quantity, is usually th 
10 



110 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

oil obtained therefrom, and the softer the rock, 
the darker and more abundant the oil. 

"Well3 are sunk either by persons owning 
the property or by companies. Some of the 
original owners of the land will not sell, and 
sink wells on their own account, generally 
realizing an ample fortune in a short time. In 
other cases wells are sunk by companies, under 
the direction of a superintendent, and the ex- 
penses paid from a sum set apart as a working 
capital. Before a well is sunk, a spot is chosen 
on which to commence work. This location 
is determined by the dip of rock, course of 
stream, burst of an upheaval, concentration of 
ravines, and other marks governing oil men, 
the failures and successes of others being of 
great benefit in making selections of spots for 
wells. The oil springs in Ohio, originate gene- 
rally near the anticlinal lines, as seen in the 
accompanying diagrams, Figs. 2, 3, 4, 5, 
sketched by Prof. E. B. Andrews.* A derrick, 
resembling the frame of an old-fashioned church 
steeple, is erected over the spot chosen. This 

* Am. Journ. Sci. and Arts, 1861. Vol. XXXII. pp. S5-93. 



BORING OF OIL WELLS. Ill 

derrick is about forty feet high, ten feet square 
at the base, tapering to four or five feet at the 
top, where a pulley block is affixed, through 
which runs a rope to work the drill and hand 
up the boring tools, sand-pump (a tube or 
pump which is used to clean out the chips 
from the hole made by the drill), tubes, rods, 
etc., used in sinking or working the well. A 
long box, about eight inches square, is then 
put down till the lower end rests on the bed 
rock, be it one or fifty feet. This box is 
called a conductor, and its use is to steady the 
drill which works up and down inside of it. 
The cost of erecting a derrick is from sixty 
dollars to eighty-five dollars, according to its 
height or plainness, and the work is done by 
almost any man acquainted with the use of 
carpenter's tools. The conductor costs from 
$15 to $30, according to the depth at which 
the bed rock is reached. The drill is a heavy 
iron chisel with rounded and sharpened end. 
It is about three feet long, and weighs from 
seventy to one hundred pounds. It is worked 
up and down by means of a rod or rope 



112 



COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 






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114 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

attached to the upper end. This chisel is 
followed by a reamer, made like the drill, 
except the end is square. It breaks down the 
little irregular juttings of rock left by the 
drill. The reamer is followed by the sand 
pump, which cleans out the debris. To work 
the drill and other tools necessary to sink a 
well, spring poles, resembling an old-fashioned 
well sweep, are sometimes used. Spring 
poles are cheaper than engines at first, but 
not so good. The relative cost of boring is 
as follows: With spring poles, $3 to $4 per 
foot. Engine, $2 50 to $3 75 per foot. This 
is the price paid to men who take the contract 
to sink the well, the employer finding all the 
tools, and if the work be done by an engine, 
the fuel and oil to work the same. This price 
includes the cleaning out of the well and putting 
in the tubing, but not the cost thereof, which 
is about sixty cents a foot. The range of price 
is governed by the depth of the well. The 
usual expense is from five to six thousand 
dollars. 
— ff A well can be put down one hundred and 



BORING OF OIL WELLS. 115 

fifty feet quicker and cheaper, with spring- 
pole than with steam power. The reason is 
that, starting at the same time, the spring- 
pole , can be erected, and the drill be down 
thirty or forty feet, before the engine can be 
set, housed, and made ready to run. But, 
once in operation, steam power drives ahead, 
passing the spring-pole drill at about one 
hundred and fifty feet below the surface. 

For developing ia new oil region, for in- 
stance, the section about Fishkill, near the 
Hudson Eiver, where there are numerous 
unmistakable indications of petroleum, wells 
could be put down at less expense, and to 
better advantage, by spring- poles than with 
engines. The same rule will apply with equal 
force where there is a "show," but not, as in 
Western Virginia, that absolute certainty of 
great oil wealth, which but awaits the drill 
and pump to yield steady streams of petroleum 
to reward and enrich the operator. 

A twelve-horse power engine costs, delivered \£f 
-on the ground ready for work here, about two 
thousand four hundred dollars ; a set of tools 



116 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

complete, three hundred and seventy-five 
dollars. From the above figures men will see 
how much it will cost to sink a well. Tanks 
cost about two hundred dollars, but this 
expense need not be incurred till the oil is 
reached. The building over the engine to 
protect it from rain and storms costs about 
three hundred dollars. The barrels are fur- 
nished by the refiner, who takes the oil from 
the tank, pays his own cost of transportation, 
barrelling, etc., and keeps you supplied with 
empty barrels. This saves the question of 
transportation to parties owning or operating 
wells. 

Rope tools are now used by all, except old 
fogies. They are less liable to accident, and 
are more convenient to draw the drill, reamer, 
and sand-pump, than the stiff continuous pole 
tools. 

The primitive style of seed-bag, an old 
boot-leg, filled with flaxseed, which expands 
when wet, is still used. A better invention is 
demanded — one that will not provokingly give ■ 
way just at the wrong time, to the delay of the 



BORING OF OIL WELLS. 117 

works, and serious loss to the owners. These 
seed-bags, I remark for the benefit of those 
who may not know the meaning of the term, 
are contrivances let down the hole, outside 
the tube, for the purpose of keeping back the 
air or water, or stopping some little crack in 
the rock through which the drill passed. A 
boot-leg, filled with flaxseed, was found to 
answer the purpose, hence the name. Oil men 
will hail with delight a new invention which 
will be certain to do the work, and be less 
bungling and more easy to manage. 

Oil-tools can be best and cheapest procured 
in Pittsburg, New York, Philadelphia, or some 
other place where they are to be had on order. 
Parties about developing oil-lands cannot be too 
particular in the selection of good machinery. 
Poor weak machinery is a nuisance, and its 
cheapness a curse, especially when the means 
for Repairing. are not close at hand. 

"We are often asked how fast a man can bore, 
or how many feet a well is sunk in a day. The 
answer depends on circumstances, according to 
the nature of the rock. Some days the drill 



113 



COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 




bo 




BORING OF OIL WELLS. 119 

will make fifteen or twenty feet; again, it will 
pound all day and not penetrate more than 
twenty inches. The average is about eight 
feet a day. The best plan is to work two gangs 
of men, from twelve to twelve, and without 
stopping drive down as fast as possible till the 
oil is reached. Very much of the success or 
failure of a company depends upon the skill, 
capability, genius, and business tact of the 
superintendent. One man works to kill time, 
looking more for sunset than for oil, indifferent 
as to all things save drawing his wages. An- 
other man attends to business, is quick, prompt, 
energetic, and interested in the welfare of his 
employers. One good superintendent is worth 
twenty poor ones, and can take charge of a 
score or more of wells, simply requiring brains 
to plan and a mind to direct the labor of others. 
Companies cannot be too careful in this respect, 
as daily observation has abundantly proven. 

A new process of boring is on trial at the 
Gillette Company's wells, on the McElhiney 
tract, Pennsylvania, under the management of 
Mr. J. T. Briggs. The process is of French in- 



120 



COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 



Fig. 7. Fig. 8. Fig. 9. Fig. 10. Fig. 11. 







Temper-screw. Drill-stem. Drill. Reamer. Round reamer. 



BORING OF OIL WELLS. 



12 L 



Fig. 12. Fig. 13. Fig. 14. 




Pipe-tongs. Jan. Sand-pump. 



li 



122 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

vention, and the patentee personally superin- 
tends its working. This is the first time it has 
ever been tested, and the progress of the expe- 
riment is watched with great interest by well 
owners. The principle is that of cutting out a 
hole instead of pounding it. The drill is cir- 
cular and hollow, being a thin tube, set at its 
lower edge with Brazilian diamonds, of hard- 
ness sufficient to cut glass. It is connected by 
an iron rod to bevelled cog-wheels attached by 
cranks and rods to the walking beam of the 
engine. The surface of the upper rock being 
cleared, the drill sits on it and revolves with 
great rapidity, cutting its way down at a rate 
astonishing to old well borers, and leaving a 
central core standing. A clamp is let down 
which grips the core and jerks it up in the form 
of a perfectly smooth cylinder. Water is poured 
down the hole to assist the cutting process, until 
the natural flow from the springs cut supplies 
the want. The portions of the core shown ex- 
hibited the stratification of the rock, and will 
go far to settle some vexed questions about the 



BORING OF OIL WELLS. 123 

strata which cannot be ascertained by the ordi- 
nary method of drilling. 

Five feet of rock had been cut at the rate of 
four inches in five minutes, or ninety-six feet 
per day, when some changes were required in 
the machine, and it was removed for alteration. 
The patentee is satisfied that he can put down 
a well of five hundred feet deep in ten days, at 
no greater cost to the well owner than by the 
present tedious process, which takes from two 
to four months. 

An oil well was being bored near Detroit, 
Michigan, and when the drill had reached a 
depth of seventy feet a current of gas escaped 
which blew out the drill and tools, weighing 
eight hundred pounds; blew off the shed roof 
of the derrick, forty-five feet high; and hurled 
forth a stream of water, gravel, and large stones. 
The workmen narrowly escaped with their lives. 
The water was strongly impregnated with pe- 
troleum. 



124 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 



CHAPTER X. 

ORIGIN OF PETROLEUM. 

Petroleum is doubtless a product of chemi- 
cal decomposition, derived from organic re- 
mains, plants, and animals, whole generations of 
which perished and accumulated during many 
destructive revolutions at the various ages or 
epochs of our planet. As to the manner in 
which these oily hydrocarbons were originally 
produced, scientific men are still divided in 
opinion. Some believe that they resulted, like 
the artificial oils we have dwelt upon, from a 
dry distillation — t. e., the effects upon vegetable 
tissue of heat, such as hot gases, or steam gene- 
rated by volcanic action, untold ages before 
our solid earth had acquired its present thick- 
ness and stability of surface. Many other 
theories have gained some ground, though 



ORIGIN OF PETROLEUM. 125 

mostly with the vulgar, as scarcely any of them 
are more coherent and rational than the old 
oil-king's extravagant supposition of a buried 
shoal of whales. 

That petroleum is of vegetable, or rather or- 
ganic origin, is too manifest from its compo- 
sition to require argument. There are, per- 
haps, but two opinions in regard to the man- 
ner of its production which deserve notice at 
our hands. The first is that the oil was derived 
during the first bituminization, or conversion 
of woody fibre into coal. The other maintains 
that, by a process of distillation, coal beds, or 
bituminous rocks, such as schists and slates, 
have yielded up their oily matter, which they 
derived from plants and animals. Even under 
the first hypothesis it might have been pro- 
duced in two ways ; for we may heat or char a 
vegetable substance like wood rapidly, with the 
total exclusion of air, and without the possi- 
bility of escape for the gaseous and liquid pro- 
ducts, or we may suffer it to undergo a sponta- 
neous decomposition under the same conditions 
of absolute confinement, and under so great a 
. 11* 



126 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

pressure that at the commencement of the pro- 
cess the products evolved might be retained. 
In both cases the same result would be attained, 
i. e n the formation of stone coal, oils, and 
gases, although in the latter case sufficient 
time — perhaps thousands of years — must be 
granted. Experiments of the former kind, 
i. e n charring of wood in hermetically sealed 
heavy cast-iron vessels, were actually executed; 
not so much to explain the origin of coal oils, 
then (1841) scarcely noticed, as to establish the 
experimental proof of the formation of stone coal 
from vegetable matter. Contrary to the usual 
supposition of a microscopic cellular structure, 
cannel and similar varieties of coal show, by 
their conchoidal fracture and total want of an 
organized or cellular constitution, that they 
must have been "in a softened or even liquid 
condition. Dr. A. Petzholdt* succeeded in 
preparing three varieties of coal in this way, 
viz : coke, charcoal, and cannel coal. The 

* Dr. Alexander Petzholdt. Ueber Calamiten und Stein- 
kohlenbildung. Dresden and Leipzig, 1841, pp. 17-28. 



ORIGIN OF PETROLEUM. 127 

latter result was obtained when the products 
of distillation were entirely retained, or could 
only have escaped through the pores of the 
cast-iron boxes. In this case the space occu- 
pied by the coal was one-half that of the wood ; 
the resulting product was dense, burned readily 
in a candle flame, and was destitute of vegeta- 
ble structure; from which he concludes that a 
decomposition of vegetable matter is possible 
in which the carbon is dissolved in the gaseous 
and liquid products formed at the same time. 
Monsieur Barouler, by placing vegetable mate- 
rial in an apparatus made of wet clay, and 
capable of being strongly compressed, and ex- 
posed for a long-continued time to a tempera- 
ture ranging from* 392 deg. to 572 deg. F., 
produced ordinary coal. 

Against this theory of oil formation by the 
original bituminization of vegetable matter, it 
has been objected that the presence of bitumi- 
nous coal beds, made of land or fresh water 
plants, should be accompanied by correspond- 
ing quantities of oil. Such is not found to be 
the case, since the oil, instead of being found 



123 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

in contact with coal deposits, occupies usually 
cavities of overlying rocks, perhaps produced 
long after the coal; and further, it is often met 
with miles away from any coal field. It has also 
been held that upon such a supposition it would 
be difficult to account for the large volumes of 
inflammable gases which exist with the oil. 

In answer to these objections, it may be urged 
that the immense pressure to which all these 
substances were subjected would naturally ope- 
rate to compel the condensed volatile products 
to seek as high a level as they could reach, and 
the consequence would be, that, having pene- 
trated the shaly formations, already, perhaps, 
charged with the heavier hydrocarbons, they 
would at last find a resting place as petroleum, 
and remain pent up until the drill of the oil 
speculator gave them vent. By the same cause 
the oil might have been forced miles away from 
the place of its original distillation; although 
it is safe to affirm that in most localities of the 
United States where petroleum is found, the 
deposit has some geographical connection, at 
least with coal-bed regions, whether these be- 



ORIGIN OF PETROLEUM. 129 

long to the oldest coal formations, as those of 
the Devonian and carboniferous systems, or to 
the much more recent oolitic and tertiary age. 
It is said that tertiary coal beds underlie the 
Eangoon oil wells. Tertiary lignites abound in 
Trinidad, Lombardy, and Middle Asia. As an 
exemplification of the pressure to which this 
putrescent flora was submitted, we may instance 
the fact that in the most recent deposits of lig- 
nites, stems of trees, upon which one hundred 
annular rings could yet be counted, were so 
flattened that one diameter exceeded the other 
four to eight times. 

It is well known that, in the common peat 
bogs of the present day, the cryptogamous 
.plants composing them give off at their first 
stages of decay considerable quantities of a 
combustible hydrocarbon known as marsh gas, 
together with nitrogen, some carbonic acid, and 
water.* Now the ancient coal measures origi- 
nated from a terrestrial flora, in stagnant waters, 

* Beitrage zur Erkenntniss der Kusammensetzung und 
Bildung des Forfes, von Dr. Justus Websky, in Journ. f. 
Prakt. Chemie, Bd. 92, 1864. Heft 2, p. 65. 



130 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

where vast bogs of gigantic cryptogamous 
plants — as tree-like ferns, club mosses, horse- 
tails (calamites), &c. — were buried, and after- 
wards converted by ages of time, tremendous 
pressure, and the agency of heat (at least in the 
case of anthracite), into coal. It is not possi- 
ble to conceive that these processes could have 
gone on without the liberation of gaseous u 
well as liquid products in large quantities. 
Chemists have separated from petroleum as 
many as twelve volatile fluid hydrocarbons, 
homologous with marsh gas (C 2 II 4 ,), i e., form- 
ing, as it were, a progressive series of that first 
and lowest member. The rate of increase 
being C 2 IT 2 , as C 2 ri 4 ,C 4 IT 6 ,C 6 II 8 , &c, &c. An ad- 
mixture of olefiant gas (C 4 II 4 ,) as it is usually 
met with in gas springs, could be easily ac- 
counted for, since we know that an elevated 
temperature acting upon vegetable matter will 
produce it. Many of the heavier hydrocarbon 
oils entering into the composition of petroleum 
are homologues of the hydrocarbon C 4 H 4 , the 
last and highest member of which is probably 
paraffine, C 4 -KlI 4 + n . 



ORIGIN OF PETROLEUM. 131 

It might be objected to the formation of these 
gases that there was no room for them to ex- 
pand under such a pressure, aqd that conse- 
quently they could not originate. But we know 
from recent experiments of Deville, Troost, and 
Cailletet, that combustible gases at a high tem- 
perature will even penetrate heavy iron tubes, 
such as gun barrels ; how much less resistance 
would certain rocks offer? 

An important item in accounting for the 
source of heat is the established fact that min- 
erals, salts, &c, in the act of crystallization set 
free a great deal of latent heat. The amount 
is at times so great that lava nearly cold has 
been seen to become again glowing. It is also 
interesting to know that mineral masses may 
dissolve large quantities of gases before becom- 
ing solid; thus Cailletet and Pilla observed that 
cold lava, after the eruption of Vesuvius in 
1861, evolved marsh gas and hydrogen. From 
this it likewise follows that the atmosphere of 
the crater inclosing the melted lava consisted 
in a considerable degree of these gases, and 
that they were taken up in the same manner 



132 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

as oxygen is absorbed by melted silver, again 
to be set free as soon as crystallization begins. 
The annexed table* shows how, in the pro- 
cess of bituminization, the proportion of oxy- 
gen decreases as w f e proceed towards older 
carboniferous formations. It has been pre- 
pared from a large number of analyses, and 
will give at a glance the comparative com- 
position of all these varieties of carbonaceous 
deposits, from wood down to anthracite coal. 
The carbon is represented by 100 in all oa 
so as to enable us to compare the sue 
sive changes in composition which take place 
from wood to coal. The small amount of ni- 
trogen and of ashes are left out in the state- 
ment: — 

* From a Course of Lectures by Dr. Terc^ at the Lon- 
don School of Mines. 



ORIGIN OF PETROLEUM. 133 

Carb. Hydrog. Oxygen. 



Woody tissue 


100 


12.18 


88.07 


JL 6cXu ■ ■ • • 


100 


9.85 


55.67 


Lignite 


100 


8.3 


42.12 


South Staffordshire coal 


• 100 


6.12 


21.23 


Steam coal from the Tyne 100 


5.91 


18.32 


Semi-anthracite coal 








from South Wales . 


100 


4.75 


5.28 


Anthracite from Pa. 


100 


2.84 


1.74 



Finally the chemical qualities of petroleum 
prove that it must have been produced by a 
process analogous in result to the dry distilla- 
tion of peat. The native, oils of th£ United 
States differ considerably from the artificially 
prepared from bituminous coal, for they yield 
with nitric acid little or no artificial oil of bitter 
almonds (nitro-benzole), or the precious aniline 
dyes mentioned in connection with coal oil. 
They are composed mainly of volatile hydro- 
carbon oils obtainable at low temperatures from 
turf. Pelouze and Cahours remark that the total- 
absence of benzine or any of its homologies 
in American petroleum, would seem to indicate 
12 



134 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

that this oil could not be derived from coal 
"unless this latter had undergone a decomposi- 
tion very different to that which takes place 
when it is submitted to distillation.* 

The other theory which regards petroleum as 
derived from bituminous shale or coal by a pro- 
cess of distillation has also its objections ; the 
chief of which is, that such coals in our oil 
regions furnish no evidence of having lost any 
of their normal quantity of bitumen. At 
Petroleum, liitchic County, Virginia, where 
strata have been brought up by an uplift from 
several Jiundred feet below, seams of cannel 
and bituminous coal appear, which, when ana- 
lyzed and compared with Nova Scotian or Eng- 
lish coals, have lost no bitumen — a fact all the 
more surprising when it is remembered that 
freshly-mined coal undergoes even at a tem- 
perature little above that of the atmosphere, 
but under increased pressure, the first step of 
bituminization, i. e t) disengages marsh gas or the 

* This sweeping conclusion seems inadmissible, con- 
sidering Schorlemmer's analysis of cannel coal oils. — 
Journ, Chem. Society, xv. p. 419. 



ORIGIN OF PETROLEUM. 135 



- 



so-called fire-damp so dangerous to miners. As 
the temperature increases, liquid hydrocarbons 
begin to appear. 

We have indeed good reasons for believing 
that the bitumen associated with schists and 
shales is rather the result than the cause of 
petroleum, L e., that bitumen consists of har- 
dened drops of the latter. 

Prof. H. D. Rogers 7 observations are im- 
portant in this connection. 

He states that the amount of volatile sub- 
stances in the Appalachian coal fields decreases 
in passing from west to east; and that, at the 
western limit, where the strata are still hori- 
zontal, the proportion of volatile matter may- 
reach forty to fifty per cent. On the eastern 
side, where the strata have been actually turned 
over, the coal contains only from six to twelve 
per cent. Sir Charles Lyell, commenting on 
these observations, remarks: "There is an in- 
timate connection between the extent to which 
the coal has parted with its gaseous contents 
and the amount of disturbance which the 
strata have undergone. The coincidence of 



136 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

these phenomena may be attributed partly to 
the greater facility afforded for the escape of 
volatile matter, when the fracturing of the 
rocks had produced an infinite number of 
cracks and crevices, and also to the heat of the 
gases and waters penetrating these cracks, when 
the great movements took place which rent 
folded the Appalachian strata." According to 
the theory under consideration, we should 
pectto find oil in immense quantities trhen 
coal measures have parted with their bitumen; 
whereas, exactly the ft 1 to be 

the case — it being borne in mind that deposits 
of oil are found only in the western portion of 
the coal fields, and that, in the eastern, where 
the coal ^ almost entirely anthracite, none 
have been discovered. 

There being, probably, no organic deposit, 
cither entirely animal or vegetable in its nature, 
but all more likely being composed of both, it 
is safe to conclude that bituminous oils are of 
a mixed origin in this respect. In Canada, 
New York, and perhaps in Kentucky, where 
oil is found in the Devonian rocks below the 









ORIGIN OF PETROLEUM. 137 

old red sandstone, it has been suspected to be 
mostly of animal origin, because these strata 
were formed long before the oldest coal mea- 
sure, and exhibit no remains of a land flora. 
In cavities formed in the rock by some fossil 
animals, as the huge chambered shelled ortho- 
ceratites, some of which were many feet in 
length, considerable quantities of petroleum 
have been found, but so fetid as to be offensive. 
Most rocks have been formed by marine depo- 
sitions o'f earthy matter, inclosing, in great pro- 
fusion, the remains of those extinct animals 
which peopled the ancient oceans. These fossil 
shells are distributed everywhere, from the 
dawn of paleozoic life up through each suc- 
ceeding age. The same is relatively true in 
regard to plants, even if that marine and scanty 
flora should not have been preserved, or failed 
to leave traces of its existence behind. It is 
a law of nature that vegetable life precedes that 
of animals ; or, differently expressed, all ani- 
mals are slavishly bound upon the existence 
of plants, since all derive their food directly or 
indirectly from them. 

12* 



138 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

The reign of plants in the carboniferous era 
commenced when land and water no longer 
struggled for predominance, for they are essen- 
tially terrestrial or fresh-water formations, 
presenting the appearance of huge swamps, 
composed, with few exceptions, of plants which 
might flourish either in or out of stagnant 
water.* The period must have been one of 
long, uninterrupted, and quiet growth; the 
climate a warm and uniformly tropical one, 
and the atmosphere probably highly charged 
with water and carbonic acid — conditions \ 
favorable for the rich development of plants, 
though unsuitable for the respiration of hi 
animals. Indeed, at the present time, in the 
damj) and warm climate of the South 
Islands, ferns and equisetaceous plants assume 
a treedike habitus. The decay of this very 
extensive cryptogamic flora, extending far up 
to the north, must have been slow, and have 
taken place generally under water. The oxy- 

* Lesquereux, Am. Jonr. Sci., vol. 32, 1S61 ; and 
Oswald Heer's Urwelt der Schweiz, Zurich, 1SU4. 



. ORIGIN OF PETROLEUM. 139 

gen being thereby excluded, the carbon would 
be preserved. 

In Southern Ohio and Western Virginia the 
petroleum is apparently found in the coal mea- 
sures therpselves ; but the wells have often to 
be sunk through them into the sandstone and 
slates below before they become productive. 

From the black shales, which immediately 
overlie the corniferous or Devonian lime- 
stone, the oil springs of Canada West issue; 
and from this fact the origin of the petroleum 
of these regions is held by the best geologists 
of the Province to be principally animal. 

Prof. J. P. Lesley writes:* "The connection 
of the oil regions with the coal basins of West- 
ern Pennsylvania and Virginia, Eastern Ohio 
and Kentucky, is, in good measure, a geogra- 
phical deception. The Oil Creek rocks, dipping 
southward, pass 500 or 600 feet below the coal 
measures. The nearest coal bed to the more 
northern springs occurs on the highest hill- 
tops, many miles away. The hills in the vici- 
nity of some of the wells are capped by the 

* Article on coal oil in Agricultural Report, 1862, p. 443. 



140 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

conglomerate base of the coal measures at least 
a Hundred feet thick. The shales and sand- 
stones of the valley belong to formations X, 
IX, and VIII, descending, called by the New 
York geologist the Catskill, Chemung, and 
Portage groups, extending over all the south- 
ern counties of Western New York. The 
southern dip carries down these oil-bearing 
rocks, and the wells must deepen in the same 
direction. Mr, Ridgeway reports (July 10, 
1862) the lowest oil-bearing sand rock, cap- 
ping the hills near Waterford, on Le BoeufT 
Creek, and the same sandstones appear on 
French Creek, full of plant remains. 

"The following wells show the dip in a 
well-marked manner: The Phillipps Well, on 
Oil Creek, is 460 feet; the Brawley Well, at 
the mouth of Cherry Run, 503 feet; the Corn- 
wall Well, 530 feet; the Avery Well, over 7'") 
feet; and at Titusville he estimates the proper 
depth at 1,000 or 1,200 feet. 

11 In the Mahoning Coal Oil region in West- 
ern Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio, near the 
line, the three oil-bearing sand-rock strata are 
beneath the lowest coal bed." 



ORIGIN OF PETROLEUM. 141 

Sir William Logan* has pointed out that 
a line drawn through London, Burlington 
Bay, Zone, and Chatham, marks the summit 
of a flat, anticlinal arch (resembling a house 
roof), upon which the principal oil fields are 
situated. The same strata in which it is found 
dip away until in Michigan, on one side, they 
are proved to be one thousand feet below the 
surface, and in Pennsylvania, on the other, they 
underlie the great coal measures. It will thus 
be seen that the surface rocks of the oil region 
in Canada are the same upon which the great 
layers of the true carboniferous or plant-pro- 
ducing era are based in other localities. In 
Canadian rocks of the Silurian and Devonian 
ages, bituminous beds, and evolutions of gase- 
ous and liquid hydrocarbons occur throughout 
the whole system ; and in the Hudson Eiver 
group of rocks, in which there are but slight 
traces of vegetable life, these oils have been 
obtained. The upper beds of carboniferous 
limestone, and the entire mass of Hamilton 
shales are charged to excess with organic (and 

* Canadian Joum. New series. Vol. vi., 1861, p. 319. 



142 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

mostly animal) remains. It is believed that 
at the time when the region in question was 
covered to a great extent by the waters of the 
ocean, a few species of aquatic plants, with 
various animals of a low order, such as on* 
noids, which grew on a stem like a vegetable; 
braehiopods, which were a kind of shell-fish ; 
and trilobites, a large cm . and many 

others, flourished in wonderful profusion. As 
the floor of the sea gradually sunk with the 
cooling of the earth-crust, BUG 
tions of these must have been buried in the 
waters, and covered by mineral and earthy 
deposits. Under such circumstances a slow, 
dry distillation might gradually take place, the 
products of which are preserved for the u.- 
man in the innumerable fissures of the rocks. 
The organic matter, scattered in such abun- 
dance along the shores, would commence to 
decompose in the ordinary manner under the 
influence of air and moisture: but w r hen, after 
putrefaction, it was covered with layers of sand 
or calcareous mud, and thus removed from 
atmospheric action, the resulting gases would 



ORIGIN OF PETROLEUM. 143 

be confined as in a closed retort, and the car- 
bon and hydrogen, being greatly in excess of 
the oxygen, would enter into such combina- 
tions as we find subsisting in petroleum and 
the various hydrocarbon gases. That the 
Canadian oils furnish no conclusive proof in 
their component parts of an animal origin, is 
not to be urged against the evidence afforded 
by the strata in which they are found. Ani- 
mal and vegetable tissues, when confined with- 
out the presence of oxygen, will give products 
quite closely resembling each other. Indeed, 
chemists have long since proved that some of 
the lowest classes of mollusks now living, to 
which the name of Tunicata has been given, 
have much the same composition in their 
mantle or covering as woody fibre. It is well 
known that the smell of Canadian oils is far 
more offensive than those of the United 
States. The same is the case with Michigan 
oils, and may apply to Kentucky and other 
oils found in sub-carboniferous strata. The 
subjoined extract from a recent newspaper 
contains many facts in support of the state- 
ments already made. 



H4: COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

"An active general interest has been awak- 
ened with regard to the petroleum region of 
New York, and it is safe to say that the time 
is not far distant when the Pennsylvania oil 
wells will be paralleled, if they are not dis- 
tanced, by those actively operating in the former 
great State. In Cattaraugus County 
wells are now working, and in Ontario County 
boring for oil is now being extensively oai 
on. In order to furnish our readers with 
some information in regard to the geogl 
characteristics of the J66 valley oil region, 

we give below two engravings showing the 
position and comparative thickness of the vari- 
ous strata at a point in this region where two 
wells arc now going down. We are permitted, 
through the kindness of Walter S. Ilicks, 
Esq., of Bristol, Ontario County, who is 
gaged in sinking several wells, to use in our 
description portions of a private letter ad- 
dressed to that gentleman by Professor James 
Half, the State geologist. Some thirty wells 
are now going down in the locality referred to, 
and great excitement is said to exist through- 
out the whole region. 



ORIGIN OF PETROLEUM. 



145 



Fig 15. 




SECTION SHOWING THE STRATA AND FORMATION OF THE 
HILLS BOUNDING THE VALLEY. 

1. Portage group. 2. Genesee slate. 3. Hamilton group. 



"Professor Hall says: 'The Hamilton group 
is, for the most part, a close, compact shale, 
with few bands of calcareous matter, and few 
open fissures.' Therefore, he thinks, oil is not 
to be expected in any paying quantity until 
the Marcellus shale, in which there is often a 
thick band of limestone, is struck; but he con- 
cludes, it will be necessary to go down to the 
corniferous limestone, or even through it, to 
the Onondaga salt group below, before finding 
a rock sufficiently fissured or cavernous to con- 
13 



146 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

Fig. 16. 



Horizon of a well on Wilder 
gulley. 



Horizon of a well on Hick's 

k la nil. 




BBCTIOH SHOWING Tni- sttmtv a^ PIOH rnoy TBI 

BUBFA01 to Tin: POIHT VTHBBI OIL 18 LIKXLT TO BE 

rOUHD in i'.wim; Ql antit; 

1. Portage group, formiog the bill.- — thickness in all, from 
bo 800 feet. 

2. Gteneeee .-late — 150 P 

3. Hamilton group, consisting of calcareous limestone, with 
calcareous band.- and a black, bituminous shale at 1 

4. Mareellus shale — thickness, together with that of the 
Hamilton group, GOO to BOO feet. 

5. Corniferous limestone, 50 to 150 feet. 

6. Onondaga salt group, consisting of impure and unequally 
bedded limestones, beds of plaster, Ac., entire thickness, 800 
to 1,000 feet. 



* ORIGIN OF PETROLEUM. 147 

tain any considerable reservoirs of oil. Pro- 
fessor Hall is also of the opinion that, at the 
.same time, more or less salt water, and per- 
haps strong brines, will be found. He adds 
that there are sometimes small masses of sand- 
stone just below the corniferous limestone, and 
if one of these should be struck, a reservoir of 
oil would be penetrated. Large quantities of 
water are to be expected before oil is reached." 

Having thus spent considerable time in the 
notice of such methods of accounting for the 
existence of petroleum as have gained most 
ground, let us rapidly observe the manner in 
which it is stored away beneath the surface of 
the earth, and also some of the best a oil signs." 

The opinions of geologists, briefly stated, 
are as follows: That the bituminous vapors 
originating from organic deposits have pene- 
trated fissures and cavities of overlying rocks 
caused by erosion and uplifting. As bubble 
after bubble passed through the water gener- 
ally collected in these fissures, a portion, being 
condensed into oil, would float upon the sur- 
face of the water, and the remainder, in the 



148 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

form of inflammable gases, would occupy the 
top of the fissure. Where the gas finds an 
outlet, there is produced a "gas spring;" 
where the water escapes it carries the oil with 
it ; and an "oil spring" results. 

That the oil is accumulated in fissures in 
the rocks, and that these fissures are more or 
less vertical, i. e\, narrow and upright I 
ties, is decisively proved by the following 
facts: — 

1. The oil in the same immediate neighbor- 
hood is found at very different depths, and it 
is very seldom that two adjoining wells strike 
it at the same distance beneath the surface. 

2. The oils of wells very near each other 
may show a great difference in density, color, 
&c. 

3. The oils from two wells not many rods 
apart may not only vary in specific gravity, 
but the deepest well may contain fresh water, 
while the other casts up salt water mingled 
with the oil. 

From these observations it is evident that 
the oil is not found in horizontal lakes or re- . 



ORIGIN OF PETROLEUM. 149 

servoirs, but in separate, distinct, and more or 
less vertical cavities. Several of these may be 
connected, however, by some channel, and 
thus the supply be quickly replenished when 
one spring or well has ceased to flow. 

According to the point of the fissure struck 
in boring, different -material may be yielded. 
If it is pierced near the top, gas escapes with 
violence, but subsequently, as the water tends 
to rise higher in the space thus vacated; the 
oil is also carried to the end of the boring, 
and may be pumped out. If, however, the 
water should enter more rapidly than it is re- 
moved, the oil may be floated to the higher 
parts of the cavity, and cannot be recovered 
until the latter is pumped away. If the 
middle portion of a fissure be tapped, oil ap- 
pears at once in the well, and may even be 
forced up violently by the accumulated gas 
pent up above. 

In locating oil wells, the following practical 
hints may prove useful. There exists no such 
thing as a specific oil rock, or stratum indi- 
cating the presence of oil; as certain distinct 
13* 



150 



COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 



geological formations indicate and are found 
associated with some of the precious minerals 

Fig, 17.* 




and metals. Oil may be struck in all 
rock, for the fissures containing it may extend 
vertically through many different strata. 
can anything be determined before hand fi 
the shape and proximity of hills, as is the 
in boring artesian wells. 






* Rock Oil, its Geological Kel.it ion? and Distribution, by 
Prof. Andrews. Amer. Jour, of Science and Arts, vol. 32. 
pp. 85-93. 



OKJGIN OF PETROLEUM. 151 

The flow of oil would seem to be caused ex- 
clusively by the pressure of pent-up gas, and 
not, as is the case with artesian wells, pro- 
duced by the weight of water, the head of 
which is higher than the issue. If the position 
be true, that the oil is generatedfrom coal and 
other bituminous strata, we should expect to 
find it at a greater or less height above the 
latter; and indeed Professor Andrews has 
found oil springs high up on hill sides, one 
hundred feet above the valley below. 

The presence of oil on the surface of water 
is no sure sign of its existence beneath, 
because it may have been transported from a 
distant source. A more favorable indication 
is the accumulation of viscous, hardened oil, 
as seen in many localities, and called "tar 
springs." These, as also gas springs,* are valu- 
able omens. 

It should be remembered that whatever 
may be the common idea, no oil well is inex- 

* In locating wells it should be remembered that oil 
and gas springs may have risen to the surface in a tortu- 
ous and not in a vertical direction. 



152 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

haustible, for no fissure, or system of fissures, 
can endure the drainage of a steam-pump for 
any great length of time. 

The experience of other regions has re- 
vealed the fact that some ancient oil 
have ceased to flow, whilst others, like those of 
Birmah and Persia, continue to flow as they 
have for ages past apparently. 

We find in the X. Fi Jour\ Commerce 

of April 27, L865, the following just rem 
on this subject of the uncertainty of oil wells : — 

"There is nothing uncertain than an 

oil well. If it graciously chooses to do so, it 
yields oil in great or small quantities; but if 
its will be perverse, no amount of coaxing 
will draw out the oleaginous treasure, 
ther can it be safely predicted that a well 
which yields a dozen barrels to-day will yield 
one to-morrow. They have a well in Athens 
County, Ohio, says a correspondent of the I 
cinnati Gazette, which, when sunk to the oil- 
rock, suddenly spouted forth such a stream of 
oil as to threaten the oleaginous overthrow of. 
all that county. But after a while the flow 



ORIGIN OF PETROLEUM. 153 

subsided, and from the reservoirs hastily con- 
structed in the ground one hundred barrels of 
oil were afterwards collected ; since that there 
has been but one well that ' blows,' as the 
workman express it. That well, soon after 
being^opened, began to throw out oil to the 
height of twenty feet, but only for a short 
time. Last summer, for a considerable time, 
it observed a regular period of twenty-four 
and one-half hours between these 'blows,'- 
each day the phenomenon occurring half an 
hour later than on the previous day. At last 
when the time for its ( blowing' reached far 
into the night, it lost its regularity, and now 
seems to be governed by no law, but still 
keeps l blowing' almost daily. When sup- 
plied with a pump and engine, it stubbornly 
refused to yield at all, and the engine and 
pump were taken away, when the well re- 
sumed its ( blowing? From another well 
nothing was got for several weeks but water ; 
after being sunk and giving the usual indica- 
tions of oil, it was tubed and prepared for 
pumping. To the dismay of the company, 



154 COAL OIL AND TETROLEUM. 

only water was obtained as the result of the 
first day's work. Water flowed abundantly 
the second day, but no oil. The third day 
was but a repetition of the first two, and the 
well was about to be abandoned. One mem- 
ber of the company, however, suggested the 
idea that the water might be exhausted by 
constant pumping, and that then oil would be 
obtained. Being an obstinate man, his con 
prevailed, and day and night, without ceas 
the tireless engine pumped water a whole 
fortnight. Still no oil. Another fortnight 
and only water appeared ; another and another, 
when lo! the flow of water ceased, and the 
flow of oil began. Eight weeks of constant 
clinging to a theory brought a triumph to the 
obstihate member, and a reward to the whole 
company. On one occasion since, when for 
some reason the engine was stopped for half 
an hour, it required nearly twenty-four hours 
pumping to clear off the water. Again when 
a belt broke and caused a stoppage of fifteen 
minutes, the same thing occurred. The well 
is now kept constantly running, and produces 
from twelve to fifteen barrels a day." 



GEOLOGICAL DISTRIBUTION. 155 



General View of the Geological Distri- 
bution of Petroleum in the United 
States and Canada.* 

The lowest geological horizon or rock stra- 
tum in which petroleum is found in large 
quantity, is in West Canada at Enniskillen. 
The oil is in the corniferous limestone. This 
formation in the United States is, in its maxi- 
mum, about 350 or 400 feet thick. 

Immediately overlying the limestone is the 
marcellus shale, which is also highly charged 
with bitumen. It is about 50 feet thick in 
Canada. These two rock-formations, then, 
which in Canada are not over 150 feet in thick- 
ness, are the reservoirs holding rock-oil in that 
country. Ascqnding in the geological scale 
and passing over into New York, the next stra- 
tum of rock yielding bitumen, oil, and gas, is 

* From an article in the Scientific American. Compare, 
also, History of Petroleum, by T. S. Hunt, in the London 
Chem. News, July, 1862 ; also Natur. History of New York, 
Part IV. Geology, by James Hall, Albany, 1843. 



156 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

there known as the Hamilton Group, about 
1000 feet thick. The oil springs of Western 
New York, along the banks of its numerous 
lakes, are mainly in this group of rocks. 
They have as yet yielded oil only in small 
quantities for medicinal purposes, but pro: 
very fair. 

. Above this group succeed black si; 
known as the Genesee Slate, 800 feet thick. 
The wells of Mecca, Ohio, and others of that 
region arc most probably in this rock. Above 
the Genesee Slate comes in the Portage Group 
of slates and sandstones, 1700 feet thick. The 
deeper wells of Oil Creek, Pa., will reach the 
sandstones of this group. Still above lie the 
rocks of the Chemung Group, which arc 
mainly composed of thin bedded slates and 
limestones. In its maximum it is 32 
thick, but in Western New York and Peni 
vania it is much thinner, being only about 
1000 feet thick. Much of the oil of Oil Creek 
is from this group; 400 or 500 feet of it are 
seen in the cliffs and hills of Oil Creek, the 
Alleghany River and its tributaries above, 
and in Venango County.' 



GEOLOGICAL DISTRIBUTION. 157 

Measured in the maximum development of 
all the rocks enumerated, we find between the 
oil of Canada and Venango County, Pa., 6000 
to 7000 feet of sedimentary rock, all of which 
bear the appearance of having been deposited 
in sea-water. The entire group of rocks enu- 
merated are known as the Devonian Series 
in England. The oil springs of Eastern 
Canada and New Brunswick, along the Gulf 
of Newfoundland, are in the upper members 
of this series. 

Leaving for the present those portions of 
the United States where oil has been most 
successfully found, and before coming into 
the geological strata of the thick and heavy 
oils, we have on the eastern flanks of the 
Appalachian Mountains in Pennsylvania and 
Virginia, 5000 feet of the Catskill group of 
rocks. (Ponent of Prof. Eogers.) Lapping 
around the southern outcrop of the coal 
measures of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Illinois, 
there are 200 feet of the lower carboniferous 
and 300 feet of the middle carboniferous. 
(Umbral of Eogers.) A total in the aggregate, 
14 



158 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

as measured in Nova Scotia and the United 
States, of 1500 feet. 

Throughout the whole of the series oil and 
gas springs are found. 

We now come into the true coal measui 
These are divided into lower, middle, barren,* 
and upper measures, a total of the bituminous 
portion of 2500 feet. 

The lowest member of the coal series caps 
the highest hills, near the mouth of Oil Ci 
and lies about 600 feet above the bed of the 
creek, or 1300 feet above the third sand- rock, 
which is the most abundant oil-producing stra- 
tum. 

At the Kiskiminetas, Slippery Rock, Butler 
Co., Pa., and Smith's Ferry, oil is in the lower 
coal measures — 800 feet thick. High up 
Kiskiminetas and on the Monongahela River, 
oil is found in the middle coal series 1000 feet 
thick. At Marietta, Ohio, and in the oil region 
around the strata of the upper coal, are the 
productive series. 

To conclude, then, oil is found through 
24,000 feet of rocks ; as measured vertically in 



GEOLOGICAL DISTRIBUTION. 159 

the geological scale, and geographically from 
Nova Scotia to Lake St. Clair, and from Vir- 
ginia to Tennessee Eiver. The geographical 
area covered by the oil-bearing group of 
rocks in the United States, Canada, New 
Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, cannot be less 
than 200,000 square miles. 



1G0 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 



CIIAPTEI1 XI. 

PREPARATION OF ANILINE DIRECTLY FROM COAL 
TAR; AND ITS PROBABLE ORIGIN.— ARTIFICIAL 
PREPARATION OF ANILINE FROU BENZOLE; 

TRANSFORMATION OP Till* LATTER IN 
LINE. — PROPERTIE \ I LINE. — CIIKM1 

TEST FOR LB.— COLORING PRINdP 

DERIVED FROM ANILINE— THEIR MODE OF 
PREPARATION AND APPLICATION IN DYEING. 

Amongst the most interesting discoveries 
of modern times, must be ranked that of pro- 
paring from an oily substance named aniline, 
a whole series of the most superb dyes, causing 
almost a revolution in the art of dyeing and 
printing. Aniline or phenylamine= C 12 H 7 N, or 

= N < n 2 TT constitutes an artificial organic 

alkaloid analogous to ammonia = NII 3 ; the 



PROPERTIES, ETC., OF ANILINE. 161 

radical phenyle = C 12 H 5 replacing one equiva- 
lent of hydrogen. It may be obtained in mani- 
fold ways for laboratory purposes thus: — 

Powdered indigo digested with a strong 
solution of caustic potash and subjected to dis- 
tillation yields a small amount of aniline. 
From the indigo plant (Indigo/era anil) it de- 
rived its name, Aniline, synonymous with 
Kyanole, Benzidam, and Crystalline. 

It is now always prepared for industrial pur- 
poses from coal tar. 

1st. It may be procured directly from coal 
tar, i. e.j as a biproduct in the manufacture of 
the heavier photogenic oils and of paraffine. 
These oils are, as stated elsewhere, decolorized 
and purified by means of acids and alkalies; 
now the ready formed aniline forms, together 
with leucoline, picoline, &c., a portion of the 
dark brown acid wash. 

Preparation of Aniline directly from Coal Tar. 

The ready formed aniline is extracted from 
coal tar oils as follows, according to Hof- 
mann: — 

14* 



162 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

The mixture is agitated with rather concen- 
trated hydrochloric acid, and the supernatant 
layer of oil separated from the acid liquor ; 
this latter is brought in contact with new 
quantities of oil until nearly saturated, so that 
only a slight acid reaction prevails. 

This solution is now placed in a copper still 
and treated with an of milk of lime, 

distilled. 

The condensed products in the receiver are 
Collected, carefully dissolved in hydrochloric 
acid, and filtered through coarse filtering 
paper, which retains that portion of indifferent 
oil floating on the rest of the liquid. 

The filtered solution is concentrated in a 
Water-bath and treated with hydrate of pol 
or soda, whence the basic oil or aniline s 
rates and swims on the top of the alkaline 
liquor. It is removed with a pipette, brought 
in contact with melted hydrate of potash to 
deprive it of water, and rectified. The receiver 
is changed and the operation suspended as 
soon as the product passing over furnishes no 
longer, upon addition of a few drops "of chlo- 






PROPERTIES, ETC., OF ANILINE. 163 

ride of lime solution, the purple reaction of 
aniline. 



Origin of Aniline in Coal Tar. 

The answer to the question as to how this 
alkaloid originates in coal tar seems to be this. 
It must be derived from carbolic acid or the 
hydrated oxide of phenyle found therein to 
the amount of eight to ten per cent. For if 
this body together with ammonia gas is passed 
through a red-hot tube, the following reaction 
takes place : — 

C 13 H 5 + HO + NH 3 = {^} + 2HO 

Hydrated oxide ~\ 

of phenyle or >-\- Ammonia. =Aniline. + "Water, 
carbolic acid. J 

It has been shown that a small amount of 
aniline may be produced by saturating car- 
bolic acid with ammonia, heating the mixture 
in a hermetically sealed glass tube to 572° F. 
by means of an oil bath. Indeed, if we heat 
in a test-tube a little carbolic acid previously 
saturated with ammonia, we obtain upon the 



164 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

addition of a few drops of chloride of lime 
solution the blue reaction of (impure) aniline. 

On the contrary, aniline may, when acted 
upon by nitrous acid = N0 3 , be decomposed 
into carbolic acid. 
C 12 II 7 N + N0 3 = C ia II 3 + IIO + HO + J\ 



Aniline. Nitrous Carbolic AoicL Wat- 

Acid. 

The experiment succeeds best by heating 
hydro-chloride of aniline with nitrate of silver 
= AgO,K0 3 . 

It appears possible that hereafter aniline 
may be advantageously produced by distilling 
nitrogenous substances, such as bone black, 
together with the bituminous coal. 

Dr. It. Wagner* has experimentally proved 
recently that, by passing superheated Bl 
(at 300° C.= 572° F.) and vapors of phenic 1 
(heavy tar oils) over alkaline cyanides, 
instance cyanide of barium, the amount of 
aniline is largely increased. 

* Jahresbericht, 1S60; also L. E. Krieger'fl repeatedly 
mentioned treatise, p. 45. 



PROPERTIES, ETC., OF ANILINE. 165 



Artificial Preparation of Aniline. 

A much more fruitful source whence ani- 
line may be prepared is benzole, entering into 
the composition of coal tar naphtha. Benzole, 
or the hydride of phenyle, has the formula 
= C 12 H 6 or C 12 H 5 H. The process of manu- 
facturing aniline from benzole consists in the 
following two operations : — 

1. Conversion of benzole into nitro-benzole. 

2. Eeduction of nitro-benzole into aniline. 

The preparation of nitro benzole on a com- 
mercial scale ft accomplished in a worm-like 
apparatus made of glass or stoneware. The 
upper end terminates like the prongs of a 
fork in two branches. Through one of these 
openings flows benzole, and through the other 
a fine stream of fuming nitric acid, or a 
mixture of commercial nitric acid with half 
its volume of sulphuric acid. The worm is 
surrounded by cold water. The nitro-benzole 
collected at the lower end of the worm is first 
washed with water, then with a solution of 



166 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

carbonate of soda, and next deprived of its 

water by means of chloride of calcium and 

rectified. 

• Nitro-benzole has the chemical formula 

or, more rationally expressed, 
c ( B 

Its formation from benzoic is explained by 
the following equation :— 
c B.+H+NO, = (' 11. NO + HO 

t ' > i ' \ 

Benzole ov hydride <>f ) v. i i i m.i 

pnenyle and nitric aoicL / 

Transformation of Xitro-lauole into Aniline. 

Nitro-benzole when acted upon by different 
reducing agents such as sulphide of hydrof 
metallic zinc, acetate of the protoxide of iron, 
and acetic acid, loses four equivalents of 
oxygen, and takes up two of hydrogen, being 
thereby converted into aniline. Bcchamp 
recommends that for the advantageous reduc- 
tion of one part of nitro-benzole, there be 
employed one part of acetic acid, and one and 



PROPERTIES, ETC , OF ANILINE. 167 

one-half parts of iron filings ; the reaction may 
be expressed as follows: — 

C l2 H 5 N0 4 + 2Ac + 4Fe = 

Nitro-benzole. Acetic Acid. Iron. 

C I2 H 7 N + 2(AcFe 2 3 ) 



Aniline. Acetate of Peroxide of Iron. 

The reaction takes place in a retort of iron, 
and the mixture becoming hot by itself, with- 
out the aid of external heat, the vapors are 
condensed in a well-cooled receiver containing 
some acetic acid. The condensed products 
consist of aniline, acetate of aniline, and also 
some free nitro-benzole. These are retained 
in the retort, and distilled to dryness. 

The distilled liquor is treated with fused 
caustic potash, whence the aniline separates 
as an oily layer, which, after being removed, 
is distilled again. 

The residue in the retort still contains a 
good deal of aniline, which is extracted with 
sulphuric acid, and the solution filtered and 
evaporated to dryness. The remainder is 
sulphate of aniline, from which, by means of 
an excess of potassa liquor and rectification, 



168 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

the aniline is obtained. Theoretically we 
ought to obtain from one equivalent of nitro- 
benzole, one equivalent of aniline, i. e., 75.6 per 
cent. In practice we obtain about |, I, ( 
per cent. 

''ne. 

Pure aniline is a colorless liquid, having an 
aromatic odor, and a burning taste. It is 
slightly soluble in water, and easily soluble in 
alcohol and ether. The commercial article is 
generally brown colored, and of a coal oil-like 
odor. 

Chemical Test for Bauole. 

As it becomes often necessary to examine 
a mixture of oils for benzole, and as there arc 
as yet such contradictory statements in regard 
to its presence in petroleum, the following test 
by Prof. Ilofmann may be applied : — 

A drop of the mixture is heated in a test- 
tube with some fuming nitric acid, to convert 
the benzole, if present, into nitro-benzole. A 
quantity of water is then added to precipitate 



PROPERTIES, ETC., OF ANILINE. 169 

the nitro-benzole in small drops, which must be 
taken up by ether. The ethereal solution is 
then poured into another small tube, and equal 
volumes of alcohol and diluted hydrochloric acid 
are next added and a few fragments of granu- 
lated zinc dropped in. In a few minutes suffi- 
cient hydrogen will be disengaged for reducing 
the nitro-benzole into aniline; the latter is found 
to be combined with the acid. The liquor is 
super-saturated with an alkali and shaken with 
ether, which dissolves the aniline thus set free. 
A drop of this ethereal solution allowed to 
evaporate in a watch-glass, and mixed after 
the evaporation of the ether with a drop of a 
solution of hypochlorite of lime, will show 
the violet tints which characterize aniline. 
The operations may be executed rapidly and 
easily. 

Aniline is now prepared by the ton to satisfy 
the constantly increasing demands of industry; 
hence the consumption of benzole has become 
so great that none can be imported from Eng- 
land, formerly the chief place of export for the 
European Continent. 
15 



170 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

The tar of all the gas works, which, at le 
where the retorts of Chamotte are employed, 
does not contain over 1 to 1J per cent, of ben- 
zole, is insufficient to meet the demand, and 
consequently much of it will have to be directly 
distilled from coal. Fortunately great purity of 
benzole is not required in the manufacture of 
the so-called tar colors, if it is at all advan- 
tageous. 

Thus ITofmann considers that there i 
necessity of mixing aniline and toluidine, to 
produce aniline red. 

Preparation of Aniline Colors. 

Nearly all oxidizing substances in contact 
with aniline produce coloring. Many different 
receipts are frequently recommended for pre- 
paring one and the same color. We have 
practically convinced ourselves, that by varying 
the quantitative proportions of the materials, 
changing the temperature of the bath, and em- 
ploying different mordants, almost any variety 
of colors and shades of color may be obtained, 



PROPERTIES, ETC., OF ANILINE. 171 

at least on wool and silk.* The colors on 
cotton appear less fine and varied. 

Until a comparatively recent period, objec- 
tions were raised against aniline colors, on 
account of their want of durability when ex- 
posed to sunlight, etc.; it was said that these, 
equalling in beauty the tints of flowers, had 
also their fragility, but even these objections 
have now in a great measure been overcome, 
and in some cases entirely removed. 

The colors are fixed upon fabrics with and 
without mordants. The following mordants 
are usually employed : alum and cream tartar, 
cream tartar and tin composition, tannin, etc. 
To fasten the dyes upon cotton fabrics, the 
goods have to be albuminized, or prepared in 
an oil bathf like turkey red, or in a soap bath. 

In printing goods with aniline colors the 
solutions are thickened with albumen, gluten, 
gum, etc., and the printed goods steamed. 

* A great variety of colored patterns, including, besides 
the leading colors, also olive, drabs, brown, etc., have been 
prepared for the museum of the Department of Agriculture. 

f Composed of sweet oil, sulphuric acid, alcohol, and 
water. 



172 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

In the following we give a few practical 
receipts to prepare leading colors; to enter more 
fully into the matter would require a treatise 
by itself.** 

1. Aniline Bed, By n., with Fuchsine, Fuchsia 

RosaniUne, awl Magenta* 

It may be obtained in the following manner 
according to Brooman : — 

Three parts of anhydrous bichloride of tin 
(spiritua libavii finnans) are slowly poured into- 
four parts of aniline, Btirring the mixture con- 
stantly, and heating it to boiling for fifteen to 
twenty minutes. 

AVhen cold the mass tfl pasty, and the color- 
ing principle may be extracted from it by boil- 
ing with large quantities of water and filtering 
the solution whilst hot. The fuchsine separates 
as the liquor grows cold. 

* To those interested in this new and highly interesting 
branch of industry, we would recommend the following 
treatise as the best : " Theorie and practische Anwendung 
von Anilin in der Fiirberei und Druckerei, von Ludwig L 
Krieg 2te Auil." Berlin, 1862. 



PROPERTIES, ETC., OF ANILINE. 173 

Additions of chloride of sodium, Bochelle salt, 
etc., deposit it more completely. It is collected 
and dissolved in hot water, alcohol, or wood- 
spirit, and the solutions employed for dyeing. 

Fuchsine is also soluble in ether, benzine, 
and bisulphide of carbon. 

The fuchsine when evaporated to dryness 
assumes a metallic, golden green aspect. 

In the following table are enumerated some 
of the other processes by which fuchsine, fre- 
quently of a somewhat different composition, 
may be prepared from aniline. 



15* 



174 



COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 



fa 







fa 
O 




fa 






o 


fa 
O 


fa 


fa 


06 


fa 


o 


fa 


fa 


I- 


-j 


o 


o 


CO 


O 




O 




CO 






(M 


-I 


-i 


d 


So 


O* 


1 


I 


CO 




CO 


CO 


CO 


CO 








I- 










>- 


b 






zz 










CO 


CO 


II 


II 


II 

6 
o 


II 


II 


II 


II 


II 

d 
o 


II 

d 
o 


d 


d 


- 


6 


d 


u 


d 




- 
- 






1 


a 


g 


g 


g 


J 


71 
1 


CO 




1 


o 




CO 


= 




f— 1 


rH 




ti 


i— i 


1— 1 


71 








99 










CO 








rH 










— 


— 


en 
































- 



















i 




fl 


E 












p 






d 






B 






o 




i 


- 












10 




= 


- = - 


— 




ifl 










:> 


9) 


2 






a 




— 








p-j 

-5 a 

- «s - = = 



pi '■«_. © 






d 



2hi 

a a 2 

i •- . - 

- 



p 

c •"* 

-_ — 

"d g 
*£ d 
5q 



pq £ 



a ~ c a 

65 _ c *3 

; 

■a E •- 

g E 



o 
O 






-? £ 






ofi 



>> 

d 
- 



pq & 



ol 



53 
O 

a, 



O 

•8 



Q O 



A 

d 
ffl 



PROPERTIES, ETC., OF ANILINE. 175 

2. Aniline Violet, syn., with Violine, Indisine, 
Pourpre Frangaise, Anileine, Phenamein, 
Mauve. 

There exist different shades of this color, 
either the blue or red tint prevailing, whence 
the adoption of the additional names — 

Aniline purple, 

Eoseine (color of the rose). 
They are evidently most closely allied, are 
formed under the same circumstances, and 
have almost identical properties toward chemi- 
cal reagents. 

Purple. 

W. Perkins and A. H. Church mix equiva- 
lent proportions of sulphate of aniline (Tolui- 
dine, &c.) and bichromate of potassa. The 
black precipitate is filtered off, washed with 
water until free from sulphate of potash, and 
dried. The dry product is treated with coal 
tar naphtha, to extract resinous matter until the 
solvent ceases to be brown. After this, the 
mass is repeatedly boiled with alcohol or wood 



176 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

spirit, which extracts the desired coloring prin- 
ciple. The solutions, when distilled in a 
retort to regain the solvent, leave a beautiful 
bronze-colored substance behind. It has a 

reddish hue, and is known as Aniline purple. 

i 
Dr. Price proceeds thus: — 

1 equivalent of aniline— (98 pari 

2 equivalents of sulphuric acid (W 

spec. grav.= 1,81 

20 parts of water added and the whole 
boiled (212° i\). 

1 equivalent of finely pulverized binozide 

of lead (110.6 parts) is added next, and the 
whole kept boiling for some time and fill 
whilst hot. The filtrate is distilled with ca 
potash or soda, until all free aniline has passed 
over. The residue is thrown on a filter and 
slightly washed with water, and then dissolved 
by a dilute boiling solution of tartaric acid. 
After filtering, the solution may be concenti 
and used in dyeing or boiled down to dryness, 
and the mass dissolved in alcohol, and thence 



PROPERTIES, ETC., OF ANILINE. 177 

be obtained by evaporation as a bronze colored 
solid. 

Instead of binoxide of lead, peroxide of 
manganese may be substituted. 

The dye, together with some protoxide of 
manganese, is thrown down from the filtered 
alcoholic extract by caustic potash, and the 
violine redissolved in alcohol. 

Prof. Bolley states that a violine bath may 
be prepared by treating a solution of sulphate 
of aniline with chlorine water or a weak solu- 
tion of chloride of lime. Silk assumes a fine 
violet color in the bath when warmed. 

According to the same chemist, aniline red 
and violet have the same chemical composition 
and are isomeric modifications.* 

The annexed directions prove that a slight 
change in - the proportion of ingredients pro- 
duces alteration in color. 

* L. J. Krieg, p. 141. 



178 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

Puqmrin (Covlcur d \ •). 

2 equivalents of aniline (18G parts). 

2 equivalents of oil of vitriol (98 parts). 

3720 parts of water. 

1 equivalent of binoxideof lead (119.6 parts). 

Or, 

50 parts of aniline. 

26 parts of oil of vitriol 66° B. 

1000 parts of water. 

32 parts of binoxide of lead. 

i: 

1 equivalent of aniline (93 parts). 

1 equivalent oil of vitriol (49.0 parts). 
1860 parts of water. 
2 equivalents of binoxide of lead (239.2 pa 

Or, 

50 parts of aniline. 
26 parts oil of vitriol 66° B. 
100 parts of water. 
128 parts of binoxide of lead. 
A slight agitation of aniline purple with 
moist binoxide of lead furnishes Roseine. 



PROPERTIES, ETC., OF ANILINE. 179 

Aniline hlue ) according to A. Schlumberger,* 
Basel. 

1 part of aniline red is mixed with 3 parts 
of aniline and 1\ part of acetic acid, and the 
mass treated with sufficient carbonate of caus- 
tic soda to decompose the acetate of aniline 
formed whilst acetate of soda is now being 
produced. The mixture is heated for some 
time at a temperature between 356° F. and 
410° F., until the desired shade of blue appears. 
The product is precipitated with strong hydro- 
chloric acid, and heated to boiling, whence the 
blue dye separates in a solid state, and can be 
removed from the liquor with a ladle. To 
get rid of the adhering acid, it is repeatedly 
boiled with water, pressed and dried. That 
portion of coloring matter dissolved by the 
strong acid can be regained upon the addition 
of water, which precipitates a blue of a second 
quality, having more of a reddish tint. 

The dried blue dye is soluble in alcohol 

* Lond. Jour, of Arts, and Prof. R. Bottger's Polytech- 
nisches Notizblatt, Jahrgang, xix. 1864. 



180 COAL OIL AND PETROLEUM. 

and wood spirit, and these solutions are used 
for coloring. 

Aniline brown. 

G. de Laire, of Paris, has taken out a patent 
in England for its manufacture. It is obtained 
by acting upon aniline violet or blue with a 
salt of aniline, thus: — 

To 1 part of violine, add — 

4 parts of anhydrous chloride of aniline, 
raise the temperature of the solution rapidly 
to 464° F., maintaining it for one to two hours, 
until the mass turns brown, and yellow vapors 
with a strong garlic odor are given off. 

The brown coloring matter is soluble in 
water, alcohol, and acids, and may in this form 
be used for dyeing. Kitchen salt precipitates 
it from the solution, and serves thus to purify 
it still further. 

Instead of aniline violet, the material pro- 
ducing it, such as arseniate of aniline, can be 
used. 



PROPERTIES, ETC., OF ANILIXE. 181 

Aniline green, according to Usebe.* 

An aniline salt is dissolved in hydrochloric, 
sulphuric acid, &c, and common rectified 
aldehyd = C 4 H 4 added and the mixture left 
standing at a common temperature for eighteen 
to twenty-four hours, whence it assumes a 
greenish-blue hue; it is then diluted with 
water containing a little acid to prevent the 
blue dye from falling, and gradually hyposul- 
phite of soda added. It has to be seen that 
the mineral acid used for solution is constantly 
kept in excess. By heating now to boiling, 
sulphurous acid is evolved and sulphur thrown 
down. The solution is filtered whilst hot. If 
an excess of the hyposulphite was employed, 
the filtrate is yellowish-green. 

The colors produced from the chemically 
interesting coal-tar hydrocarbon, naphthaline, 
are as yet of but slight technical signification, 
and may be omitted by us. 

* Scliweizer Polys. Zeitschrift, 1S64, p. 77. 

16 



AFPEXDIX. 



AMOUNT or PETROLEUM EXPORTED FROM NEW 
YORK IX [863 AND 18H AND Till. 
PLACES TO Wllicu IT WAS 6BNT. 

The increase in the oil trade during the 
two years is owing to the increased foreign de- 
mand. For home consumption alone, a com- 
paratively small fraction of the figures given 
below would suffice to glut the market. Europe 
has greatly exceeded the United States in the 
multiplicity of uses to which petroleum has 
been put. Of late discoveries of its properties 
have so increased in number abroad that the 
supply proves inadequate to the demand. 

The table shows how extensive the demand 
has already become, and, together with our 
account of the article itself, will serve in some 
degree to foreshadow the future. It is impos- 



APPENDIX. 



133 



sible to foresee, with even an approximation to 
correctness, the extent to which this product 
will become an article of exportation and of 
usefulness throughout the world. 

We republish from the New York Shipping 
and Commercial List : — 





M64. 




To Liverpool . 


734,755 


2,156,851 


London 


. 1,430,710 


2,576,331 


Glasgow, &c. 


368,402 


414,943 


Bristol . ~. 


29,124 


71,912 


Falmouth, England . 


316,402 


623,176 


Grangemouth, England 




425,334 


Cork, &c. . 


3,310,362 


1,532,257 


Bowling, Eogland 


87,164 




Havre 


2,324,017 


1,774,890 


Marseilles 


1,982,075 


1,167,893 


Cette 


4,800 




Dunkirk . 


232,803 




Dieppe 


79,581 


46,000 


Eouen 




143,646 


Antwerp . 


4,149,821 


2,692,974 


Bremen . 


971,905 


903,004 


Amsterdam 


77,041 


436 


Hamburg . 


1,186,080 


1,466,155 


Rotterdam 


532,926 


757,249 


Gottenburg 


33,813 





184 



4 APPENDIX. 




Cronstadt .... 


400,376 


88,060 


Cadiz and Malaga 


$74 


33,284 


Tarragona and Alicante 


,823 


33,000 


Barcelona 


-;>.;.()«) 




Gibraltar .... 


181 


308 


Oporto 


17,474 




Palermo 


>83 


7,115 


a and Leghorn . 


635,121 


399 


Trieste 


165,175 




Alexandria, Bgypt 


4,000 




Lisbon 


167,195 




Canary Maud 






Madeira 






Bilbi 


500 




China and East [ndieo 


34,: 




Africa 


,195 


1.2,230 


Australia . 


377,884 


304,166 


Otago, N. Z. . 


L0,810 




Sidney, N. 8, W. 


-80 




Brazil 


149,61 


L60,152 


Mexico 


112,986 




Cuba 


. 418,01 


356 


Argentine Republic . 


20,260 


24,470 


Cisalpine Republic . 


78,552 


117 


Chili .... 


92,550 




Peru 


169,061 


250 


British Honduras 


6,072 


440 


British Guiana . 


7,881 


15,104 



APPENDIX. 




185 


British West Indies 


. 


70,976 


60,931 


British N. American 


colonies 


28,902 


16,995 


Danish "West Indies 




8,463 


31,503 


Dutch West Indies 






26,638 


12,143 


French West Indies 






16,020 


9,104 


Hayti 






7,088 


12,064 


Central America 






993 


456 


Venezuela 






28,583 


15,455 


New Granada . 






56,490 


107,837 


Porto Eico 


■ * 




20,026 


59,439 


Total gallons 


.-.21,280,489 


19,547,604 



During the following years there has been 
exported from other ports as follows: — 







GALLONS. 






1864. 


1SG3. 


1S62. 


Boston . 


. 1,696,307 


2,049,431 


1,071,100 


Philadelphia 


. 7,760,148 


5,595,738 


2,800,978 


Baltimore 


929,971 


915,866 


174,830 


Portland 


70,762 


342,082 


120,250 



10,457,188 8,703,117 4,167,158 
The total exports from the United States 



are— 

1862 
1863 
1864 



Gallons. 

. 10,887,701 
. 28,250,712 
. 31,745,687 
No. of barrels of 40 gallons each, 
16* 



Value from 
average prices. 

'$14,616,923 
23,686,457 

1,772,102$ 



186 



APPENDIX. 



AVERAGE PRICES OF PETROLEUM IN 1864 AT NEW 
YORK AND PHILADELPHIA. 









Crude 






r gallon). 


(per gallon). 


January 


. 31 , n 6 cents. 


cents. 


February . 






. 30i 


ii 


" 


March 






• a 


t< 


501 " 


April 






• : 


<( 




May 






. 38 


<( 


" 


June 






. -11', 


M 


77 


July 








II 


" 


Angust 








M 


87} " 


September 






. . 46 


u 


" 


October 






. ; 


<( 


u 


November 






. 45^ 


(( 


u 


December 






. 


II 




Average for 1864 


. 41.-1 


n 


1 M 


Average 


fori 


3G3 


. 2 


II 


51.74 " 



INDEX. 



A 

PAGE 

Alcohol series of hydrocarbons .... 42 

Aluminum 17 

American Druggist's Circular quoted . . 72, 107 
Andrews, Prof. E. B., drawings of the anticlinal lines 

near which oil originates . . 110, 112, 113 

quoted 150 

Aniline 71 

artificial preparation of . . . .165 

blue 179 

brown 180 

chemical properties of . . . . .168 
colors, preparation of . . . . .170 
origin of, in coal tar . . . . .163 
preparation of, from coal tar . .160, 161 

red 172 

transformation of nitro-benzole into . .166 

violet 175 

Artificial products, comparison of, with those found 

in nature 66 

Avery well 140 

B 

Baird, H. C, quoted 15 

Barlow, Peter, quoted 15 



188 



IXI'EX. 



Barrels ....... 

ba of 
Benzine, absence of, in American petroleum 
or naphtha ..... 

Benzole, absence of, in some American oils 
ohemic 

. 

Bitumen. ..... 

Bitumen-. Localities of .... 
Bitnminisatioi In the 

proportion o In 

Bituminous Bhale, theory of oleum 

from ..... 
oil, 1 ... 

te, distillation of 

y it •: 1 ist illation 

Black shales, oil in 



Boring, new pi 

of oil Wells . 
tin: 1 for 

Brawl ey well . 




. 31 



21 

43 

C8 
90 



. 110 

. 109 

. 117 

. 140 



Cailletet, experiment of . 

Canada, oil in 

oils 

qualities 

Canadian oil region, dip of rocks in 
Cannel coal, products of the distillation of 
Caoutchouc, mineral .... 
Chemiral composition of petroleum 
Chemistry, influence of, on the mechanic arts 



101 

141 
4<> 
68 

13 



INDEX. 



189 



PAGE 

Chrysene 43 

Coal as a fuel, national importance of . .14 

beds, geographical connection of oil with . 128 

under Rangoon oil wells .... 129 

distillation of 21 

from the Tyne 133 

in the United States 14 

measures, origin of 129 

oil in 139 

Pennsylvania anthracite . . . .133 
semi-anthracite ...... 133 

South Staffordshire 133 

the power exerted by 15 

wood or turf, products obtained from . . 24 
Coal oil or kerosene, purification of ... 60 

tar creasote . 35 

Coal tar, distillation of . . • . . .45 
Comparison of artificial products with those found 
in nature ........ 66 

Cornwall well 140 

Creasote 21, 32 

D 

De La Rue & Miller, examination of Birmese naphtha 82 

Derricks, erection of Ill 

Deville, experiments of 131 

Devonian rocks, oil found in Canada and New York 136 

Distillation, dry, of organic bodies ... 24 

of coal tar 45 

Drill 111,120 

Drill-stem 120 

Dry distillation, petroleum must have been pro- 
duced by . . . . . . . 133 

or destructive distillation of organic bodies . 24 



190 



IXDEX. 











Elastic bitumen C8 


Empire Bpring .... 






. 


Empyreumatio oil, history of . 






. 


Engine, derrick, and oonneotionfl 






. 118 


Engin< 






. 114 


adv; 






. 114 


Eapion or Light oil .... 






. 31 


Export of petroleum 






1-1 


F 
Fara<l.iy, the manner in vrhioh ho originally 


. 


Plrea in w< .... 








Frankland, Dr., quoted .... 








Frenoh Creek 








French process of boring 








FikIi- 






L79 


processes for manufacture <>f 









G 
1 distribution i mm in the United 

- and Canada 

r, Dr., qui ...... 






II 

Hall, Prof. James, quoted 1 14 

Hard rocks contain small quantity of petroleum . 1<»'.) 

Hatchetin 

Heat, sour* 

Heavy oil 

Heer, Oswald, quoted ...... 138 

History of bituminous and kerosene or empyreu- 
matic oils 62 



INDEX. 



191 



History of petroleum or rock oil 
Hitchcock, Professor, quoted . 
Hofmann, Prof., quoted . 
Humfrey, Charles, quoted 
Hydrocarbons 



I 



Idrialin ..... 
Illuminating power of petroleum 



PAGE 
89 

14 

168 
75 
42 



69 

87 



Jarr 



K 



Kapnomore 

Kerosene oil, history of . 

purification of 
Kildare, chemical works at 



121 



32 
62 
60 
53 



Lake tar 

Lava, marsh gas from . . 

Lebon, his application of carbo-hydrogen gases to 

illumination ...... 

Lesley, Prof. J. P., quoted .... 

Lesquereux quoted ...... 

Light oil, or eupione 

Lignite . ... 

Lignites, tertiary, in Trinidad, Lombardy, and Middle 

Asia ........ 

Limestones impregnated by petroleum . 

Locating wells, hints in . 

Logan, Sir William, quoted .... 

Lyell, Sir Chas., quoted 



93 
131 

27- 
139 
138 

31 
133 

129 
109 
149 
141 
135 



192 



INDEX. 



coal, 



wood 



Magenta 

Magnesium 

Mahoning oil region, dip of rookfl at 

Manufacture of photogenic oils, &c, from 

and turf 

Iffanfleld I tenti 

Marsh gas from lava 

given off by plants in peat bog8 
Miner hone 

Mm 1 gU to illnmi: 

Ifosprati, Dr. um . 



172 
17 

140 

44 

1 1 
68 



N 
Naphtha or benzine .... 



and parannphthaline, formation of 
.ihienee of . 
Nature, hiddei ( . 

. York, oil in 

NitTO-1 formation of, into aniline 

Ohio, oil in 

oil B] 

Oil and coal regions, apparent connection of 

business, niagnitu I 

k 

geological position of oil in 

rocks, dip of 
first obtained by boring, l v 19 
formation, theories of . 
mav have been for. n 1 1 y pressure far 
from place of original distillation 

photopenic 

tools, where to be had cheapest and best 
wells, cost of sinking .... 



44 
IS 

98 
110 

139 

95,96 
139 

a way 
. 
. M 

. 117 
111, 114 






INDEX. 



193 



Oil wells, hints in locating .... 


. 149 


Origin of petroleum ..... 


124 


Organic bodies, dry or destructive distillation of 


24 


origin of petroleum ...... 


125 


Ozokerite, or fossil wax . . . . . 


69 


P 
Paper, raw materials for manufacture of 


19 


Paraffine. or tar-wax . . . • . . 21, 


37.42 


series of hydrocarbons .... 


42 


Paranaphthaline ...... 


43 


Parrish, Edw., quoted «».... 


. 103 


Peat 


133 


bogs, plants in. give off marsh gas. *S;c. 


129 


or turf from Hanover, yield of 


52 


Pelouze & Cahours 


Bl 


on American petroleum 


133 


Pennsylvania, oil in 


96,97 


oils, qualities of 




petroleum in ..... 




Percy, Dr., experiments of ... . 


132 


Petroleum, export of 


. 181 


discovery and development of, properties of . 


20 


geological distribution of 


185 


position of . • 


. 109 


history^of 


- 


illuminating power of . 


. B7 


impregnates limestone, sandstone, and shale: 


s 109 


in Pennsylvania ..... 


. 108 


native, discovery of ... . 


. 22 


on the American Continent . 


76 


origin of ..... 


. 124 


or rock oil, its chemical composition 


. 70 


prices of 


. 1S5 


17 





194 



INDEX. 



Petroleum, qualities of those from different localities 1<>1 
refining of ...... 

pparatUfl for manufacture of gas from 

wood M 

Petlholdt, Dr. A., experiments .... 

Phillips well 

Photogenic oils 



manufacture of, from coal, woo<l, and turf 

Picainar f 

rill.- ation of 

Pipe-tonga 

Pittsburg petroleum . . . 
Preparation of aniline oolon * 

<lu> • 

. 

Produoti of distillation and their 

ohemioal composition 

of wool, coal, or turf 
Purification of coal oil 
Purpli 
Purpurin 
Pyrene .... 



Q 



Quiun, A., patent still 



44 

121 

108 
1W 

128 

185 

60 
178 






R 



Rangoon oil, analy- 
Reamer . 

Refining of petroleum 
Reiohenbaoh, discoveries of 



114. 
31,39 



discoveries of constituents now \ from 
petroleum 



20 



INDEX. 



195 



Retinite or retinasphalt 



Retinasphalt or retinite .... 




. 68 


Rocks, dip of, in the Oil Creek region 




. 140 


Rogers, Prof. H. D., observations of, on volatile sub 




stances in Appalachian coal fields 




. 135 


quoted 




. 15 


Rope tools, advantages of 




. 116 


Roseine 




. 178 


Round-reamer 




. 120 


S 
Sand-pump 


. 114, 121 


Sandstones impregnated by petroleum . 


. 109 


Schorlemmer's analysis of cannel t3oal oils 




■ 134 


his examination of oils 




82 


Scientific American quoted . . . 




. 155 


discoveries, facts in regard to 




13 


important .... 




. 16 


Seed bag 




116 


Seneca Indians 




. 94 


Shales impregnated by petroleum . 




109 


Shaw, Thomas, quoted .... 




, 71 


Spring poles 




114 


advantages of, over engines . 




115 


Strata at Bristol, Ontario County, N. Y. . 


145, 146 


Tanks 


. 116 


Tar, beech-wood, ingredients of 




31 


constituents of, from bituminous slate . 




52 


of, from peat or turf . 




53 


Tar-wax or paraflme . • . 




37 


Tate, A. N., analyses of petroleum . 




76 


quoted 




88 



196 



INDEX. 



Temperature, variation of results with 
Temper screw 



Thermometer for determining 
which different oil 

Titusville 

dip - at 

Troopt, experiment ^»f 
Turf, prodaotfl 






•atures at 






wells 



103 






Vegetable mat* Illation of 

Venango County 

Violine ......... 17^ 

Vohl, Prof., analyal :oou oil 



W 

Websky, Dr. Justv 1 . 

Wells, anoertainty of ... 

West Virginia, oil in ... 

'., or tun dned from 
Wood tissue 



98 
133 



l)£C 16194a 









.• 






